


Love's Not My Forte

by insanityscars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Because I DO WHAT I WANT, But Not Much, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hunk is twenty, I say that now but it'll probably be really bad, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Keith is nineteen, Lance is twenty, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pidge is seventeen, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Shiro is only twenty-five, and I'm not making him twenty-eight, street performer au, tags will be updated as I go, theres a bit of swearing, yes that's a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanityscars/pseuds/insanityscars
Summary: Keith has been busking in the same spot for two years. It's popular in the good way, serene in the right way, and makes for a great paycheck. Then a perky young man with a boyish smile comes along and flips Keith's otherwise routine life on its head. Keith has never crushed on anyone before, but Lance has managed to earn his attention - and his heart - in just a couple of days. With both boys blissfully oblivious to the other's feelings they find themselves in an are-we-dating-are-we-not? relationship, and Keith finds himself falling even harder for the childish Cuban artist. But what should he know? Love isn't his forte.Or:Keith is completely smitten for the childish street artist and Lance is head-over-heels for the busker with the guitar.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here's a street artist AU you never knew I wanted. Have a horrendous first chapter called: I didn't want to post anything less than 3000 words.

He was new.

That was obvious, really. The boy was setting up something on the other side of the open-air mall, about fifteen metres away. He’d chosen a flat patch of cement on the far sidewalk. Most people just dumped their chairs on the bricks and set up their stupid miniature gazebos right in the middle of the paths.

But this kid was different. He had stood around for a few minutes before unfolding a chair between a Typo store on the sidewalk side and a bar-slash-restaurant in the middle of the path. Keith had seen how the shadows fell and he knew without a sliver of a doubt that the boy would be in the sun for a maximum of thirty minutes that day.

Keith had followed more of the cliché movie musician trope, and had adopted a position on the edge of the fountain. But he didn’t just sit there to appeal to stereotypes. There was the bar-slash-restaurant behind him, the Typo store to his left and a whole chain of restaurants and cafés to his right. And, of course, the fountain. Keith had quickly learned that people didn’t like to carry change, so when someone walked out of _La Porchetta_ after buying a twenty-eight dollar meal with a fifty dollar note, they were eager to dispose of any excess coins. Wishing wells were always a good option.

So were buskers.

The boy was doing. . .something on the ground. Keith cocked an eyebrow and shook his head, lifting his guitar from the ground by his feet. He didn’t have time to worry about someone else’s busking methods. But every time Keith finished a song he found his eyes drifting to the brunet boy. Keith grabbed his water bottle and leant back, intending to make his drink last as long as it needed to check out—study, _study!_ —the boy across the mall.

He looked to be about Keith’s age, that much was clear. His skin was tanned and whenever he stood to survey his work he showed off legs that had to make up at least half his height. Keith was tempted to go and look at whatever it was this boy was doing that made him smile like that, but he didn’t trust people and leaving his guitar and money alone, even for a minute, was just like sticking up a neon sign that read “FREE STUFF: HELP YOURSELF”.

The boy had a sign, too. Keith couldn’t read it from where he stood, but when a young woman pointed towards it, the boy nodded and motioned towards the chair. The boy—if he was Keith’s age he was more of a _young man_ , but that childish grin just screamed ‘boy’—lifted a rectangular black canvas bag from behind the seat and sat cross-legged on the ground. He pulled a sketchpad out of the bag and lifted a white pen with two ends. He started to draw, pen gliding across the paper.

Street artist.

“Do you do requests?”

Keith snapped his attention to the young girl in front of him. She had long blonde hair and shining blue eyes. Keith nodded and lifted his guitar.

“I can try,” he said, smiling warmly. The little girl laughed and sat down beside Keith. “So, what would you like me to play?” The girl gave a shy smile and whispered the name of a song Keith had never heard. Keith pulled out his phone and typed in _You’re Welcome Moana_. Keith chuckled at the results and smiled.

The boy looked at him.

Keith caught the boy’s gaze and gave a shy smile. The boy laughed and looked back down at his sketchbook. Keith shook his head and plugged in his earbuds. He popped one in and played the song softly, strumming along to the chords and giving his best attempt at singing along. The little girl didn’t seem to mind the occasional out of tune note or off tempo line—in fact, she even laughed along when Keith got tongue tied and ended up making a strange, “Bleh,” noise mid-song.

When Keith finished the girl clapped and plunged a hand into her pocket, pulling out a mix of bronze and silver coins. She dropped them into his guitar case with a smile, thanked him again and ran over towards the street artist. The small girl dropped into a crouch beside the seat and the woman said something to her. She nodded and turned around to watch the boy draw, grinning at what she saw.

Keith ran through an earlier piece again, some catchy love song about a woman talking to the ghost of her husband, and as he sung the last chord the street artist finished his drawing. The woman stood up, withdrawing a twenty dollar note from her purse, and took the sheet of paper the boy offered her. She took the girl’s hand and she called what was probably a goodbye to the street artist.

Keith was about to turn back to his music when the other boy caught him staring and waved. Keith’s breath hitched in his throat and he gave a hesitant wave in return. The boy laughed into his hand and stood, dusting himself off, then reached for what Keith realised was a large piece of chalk and turned back to the sidewalk. He bent, sketching out shapes that looked strange from where Keith stood but were probably perfectly normal from the boy’s point of view.

The street artist had taken at least nine more requests by the time Keith broke for lunch—not that he’d been keeping count. Keith was becoming envious—in one hour this new boy had earned more than Keith did in a day. But that was why Keith had another job, wasn’t it? Though he averaged between one hundred and twenty, and one hundred and fifty dollars per twelve-hour day, it didn’t hurt to have a backup, especially when the weather was against him.

Keith always hated this part. He either had to trust people enough that he could go stand in line for a few minutes and leave his possessions unguarded, lug everything with him to the nearest restaurant or bring food with him. Option C was most definitely out of the question—Keith would burn water if he could.

A was sometimes a plausible option, depending on the day, the weather, the number of people around. But Mondays were never good days, and way too many stores were having sales, so the number of people milling around probably exceeded the number of people who should be able to fit in the open-air mall at once. So option A was definitely out.

Keith tipped his earnings out of his guitar case and into the pockets on his belt. He set aside a couple of dollars and zipped up his guitar, then walked to a small café. It was cheap and less than fifty metres from his busking spot. It gave him a good view of his possessions on the few days he did leave them by the fountain, and on most days when he brought his guitar with him he could occasionally earn a few extra dollars. The staff generally let him play while he waited, and it brought the café a little more publicity.

One espresso and a ham and salad sandwich later Keith was back on the edge of the fountain, guitar over his knee, case open on the ground in front of him. The street artist finished a commission and looked up, shock registering on his face. He gave a lazy smile and cocked an eyebrow. Keith jerked his thumb in the direction of the café and returned the smiled before turning back to his guitar.

Now well-fed, Keith lost himself in his music, breaking out song after song until his voice was husky and his throat was dry. Then he just took a swig from his water bottle and resumed his singing.

When Keith’s alarm went off he blinked, looking down at his watch in surprise. He’d managed to forget it was even there. Keith started tipping his earning into his belt pockets, wondering how he’d managed to lose himself so completely for the first time in years, when his hand brushed a piece of paper. Keith made a surprised squeak and yanked his arm back. After calming his breathing Keith laughed at his foolishness and lifted the paper.

It was a drawing. Of him.

The drawing looked like it had been painted on, but was clearly done in ink, like a brush pen. There was no lineart, no pencil smudges. The artist had gone straight into the pen work.

Keith traced his fingers gently over the image. It was stylised, but still somewhat realistic. In the picture Keith was sitting on the edge of the fountain, guitar over his knee. His fingers were pressed into an A chord and his head was bowed, hair framing his face. But Keith could see the faintest hint of a smile on drawing-Keith’s face.

And there, at the bottom of the image, scrawled in fine black pen, was a name.

Lance.

 

* * *

 

Tuesday went just the same as Monday, only this time Keith knew the street artist’s name. Lance. Another difference was that whenever Lance smiled or waved, Keith was able to return the gesture with minimum awkward tension. At least, he hoped so.

Unfortunately for Keith, the sky promised rain, and rain meant less customers for the mall, and less customers meant less money for Keith. Much less money. Keith strummed awkwardly at his guitar, but every few minutes he had to retune thanks to the heinous weather.

The street artist—Lance, Keith reminded himself, his name is Lance—was taking in more commissions than he could really keep up with, and a lot of the customers had to have their pictures taken and come back after they’d finished shopping. Lance barely had time to work on today’s chalk drawing.

Despite his less than impressive performance Keith still managed forty dollars by lunch. His questionable luck ran out a few minutes later, though, when the sky opened and it started pouring. Keith bolted out into the rain to grab his now sopping guitar and its case from where he’d left them. He sought refuge in the little café, drying his guitar with a towel offered by the staff, and tuned it as soon as he could. Keith wasn’t about to let a little rain get in the way of him earning his wages.

Keith started taking requests from the other customers. They mostly called for older songs, and Keith spent a good deal of time with an earbud in and sheet music pulled up on his phone, but money was money and playing was playing.

When Keith caught a break he looked up to find Lance had ducked under the cover of an awning. It seemed, at least to Keith, that the boy had only sought shelter to protect his art supplies—like he’d rather be out in the rain than cooped up on the sidewalk. When his commissions died down Lance went back to sketching in chalk, blending his current creation with the one being washed away by rain.

Keith was never particularly good at ballads, and one thing he could never do was sing another language, but when a wizened old man asked him to play a Spanish love song whose name Keith couldn’t even hope to pronounce, well, who was he to refuse?

The rain was starting to let up when Keith began the song, and his voice carried out through the almost empty mall, echoing off the buildings. For a moment no one moved, then Lance lifted his head to watch, enraptured, as Keith struggled to perform what was possibly his greatest mistake, and somehow managed to make it sound good.

When Keith finished his face was the same colour as his scarlet jacket, and not just from the embarrassment of playing badly. Lance was smiling at him wistfully, and had even asked a client to wait until he’d finished. Lance shot him a grin and turned back to his art, finishing the drawing with a few quick strokes. He handed it over, pocketing the fee, and started to pack up.

Keith’s alarm went off and he packed his guitar away, thanking the café owners for the hospitality. He started walking away, then thought better of it and turned towards where Lance had been crouched. The street artist started walking away just as Keith arrived. He looked down at the drawing and sucked in a breath.

A waterfall was running down the path under Keith’s feet. The sidewalk was the rich blue of water tumbling over rocks, and at the space where the rain had hit the pavement the waterfall met a pool. The raindrops had made the chalk run, and somehow Lance had made it look good rather than hideous. Keith was almost convinced that if he stepped forward his foot would sink into the lake.

Something was pinned under a loose piece of pavement. Keith bent, fingers finding paper, and he lifted a fifty dollar note out from under the cement. Keith gaped, turned to face Lance, who was only a few metres away. “Hey—!” Keith called, starting after him. Lance looked back, saw what Keith was holding and winked, then turned and kept walking.

 

* * *

 

 

“He just—he just winked at me!” Keith swiped a back of chips from a shelf and leant against the counter. He opened it far too aggressively and stuffed a handful of salt-and-vinegar chips into his mouth. “He left fifty fucking dollars on the ground and winked at me!”

“God, you’re _smitten_!” A girl popped up from behind the counter and pushed her thick curls out of her face. She narrowed her eyes at Keith. “You are gonna pay for that, right?”

“I work here; I don’t have to pay for anything. And I’m not smitten! I’ve literally said one word to the guy and you think I’m crushing on him?”

“I _know_ you’re crushing on him! I can feel the gay radiating off of you.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Camilla. And don’t you have shelves to be restocking?”

“Need I remind you of the Jason incide—”

“You’ve reminded me of the Jason incident five times in the past two months! Now go stock the shelves!” Keith shoved Camilla roughly towards the back shelves and she swore at him in Swahili.

“And I’ll continue to remind you every time you doubt my gaydar.”

“Being able to tell if someone is gay is not the same as being able to tell if someone has a crush on another person. And I do not have a crush on a random street artist.”

“Well he clearly has a crush on you if he drew you and left you a fifty dollar tip! Ow, hey!” Camilla swatted away the scrunched up chip packet Keith had thrown. “Pick that up, you prick!”

“Stock the fucking shelves,” Keith replied, jumping down from the counter to retrieve his rubbish. He threw the packet in the bin and walked back over to the desk. He hopped up on it again and crossed his legs, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“So, what’s lover-boy’s name?” Camilla asked.

“Lance,” Keith replied absentmindedly.

“Oh, so he does have a name! Have you got his number?”

“What? No! I told you, we haven’t even had a proper conversation!” Keith balked.

“But you want his number?”

“If he gave me his number I would talk to him, but he didn’t, and I’m not about to go stalking him, so can you just give it up and stock the—”

“What’s his last name?” Camilla had pulled up the Yellow Pages on the computer beside the till and was furious typing.

“Okay, first: I don’t know. Second: you’re not going to find a mobile phone number in the Yellow Pages. And third: that’s really cree—oh, _shit_!” Keith pushed himself backwards off the counter and dove beneath it, pressing himself as far under the desk as humanely possible.

“What?” Camilla gaped, kicking him lightly.

“That’s him!” Keith hissed, jerking his thumb in the direction of the automatic doors. A tall, dark haired boy was soaking in the air con with joy, eyes scanning the shelves. He started off into the furthest aisle and Keith let himself breathe.

“That’s Lance?” Camilla let out a bark of laughter. “Dude comes here, like, once a week! How have you never seen him before now? Sometimes he even brings friends!”

“In case you’ve forgotten I never have been good with people, and so choose to spend the majority of my time out of the way where I do not have to take part in social interactions!” Keith hissed, trying to make himself as invisible as possible.

“Okay, so why are you hiding from him? Is he that terrifying?”

“Because I’ve shared a total of one word with him and now he comes strolling in here with his head held high and I’m wearing a tacky uniform and eating chips on a desk at eight o’clock at night and _why am I panicking_?!”

“Because you’re smitten!” Camilla teased, poking Keith with her foot. She cleared her throat and leant over the counter a little. “Heya, Lance! Another movie night?”

“Nah, just picking up some stuff for Hunk. But I mean, if you wanted to join us. . .?” Keith could _hear_ the smirk in Lance’s voice.

“You know I’m a taken lady, Lance,” Camilla replied, ringing up his items. She chuckled and handed him his bag. “A friend of mine tells me you’ve set up a spot at the mall.”

“Oh?” Lance raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Nothing much. Some street art between commissions. Helps pay the bills. But splitting the fee for the flat with two other people doesn’t hurt.” Lance glanced at his watch. “Sorry, I gotta split. Hunk will have an aneurysm if I don’t bring his stuff back sometime in the next five minutes. Ciao!”

It took to the count of one hundred for Keith to risk popping his head up. He sighed in relief and stood, draping himself over the counter.

“He’s so gay,” Camilla muttered, throwing Keith a sideways glance.

“He was hitting on you!”

“Boy would hit on a rock if it smiled at him.” Camilla cocked an eyebrow. “Why? You and your gay ass jealous?” She slapped Keith’s butt and he gave a high-pitched shriek, stumbling back. Camilla burst into laughter and returned to the shelves.

“So, what, he’s pan or something?”

“Something like that.” Camilla tapped her nose. “Gaydar never lies.”

Keith draped himself over the counter and sighed. “Okay. So a cute, pansexual artist has given me fifty dollars for literally no reason and I have just discovered he lives right near my place of work.” Keith knocked his face against the desk. “Fuck.”

“You called him cute,” Camilla said, dodging the pen that was thrown haphazardly towards her. “You definitely called him cute.”

She didn’t see the water bottle until it had hit her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What even is Lance thinking?

“What was that yesterday?”

Lance looked up at the semi-familiar voice and blinked into the sun. When his vision adjusted he noticed he was looking up at the busker. “Oh, hey, it’s you! You sound different when you sing.” Lance smiled and sat back on his haunches, dusting his hands off on his pants. “And I don’t know, you’re the one who was hiding under the counter.”

“I didn’t—wait, you saw that?” Horror flitted across the boy’s face.

“Uh, yeah. You’re not exactly a small guy, and there wasn’t a lot of desk to hide under. Plus, I’m fairly tall.”

“You’re, like, an inch taller than me.” The busker deadpanned.

Lance stood upright and held his hand out between them. “Mm, I’d say two.” He dropped back to the ground and grabbed an ice blue piece of chalk. Lance started sketching out new cracks on the pavement. He took a dark grey piece and sketched the rough shape of a seal’s torso. “Why were you under the desk anyway? I’m not that threatening, am I?”

The busker clearly ignored him and instead pulled something from his pocket. “What’s this?”

Lance turned to look at the object being held out to him. “I’d say that’s a fifty-dollar note.”

“It’s the fifty-dollar note you left behind yesterday.”

“Glad to see you didn’t spend it all in one place.” Lance smiled and turned back to his drawing.

“You just left it out where anyone could grab it.” The boy seemed to be getting exasperated.

“I didn’t put it out until I saw you coming over. I wasn’t just going to leave fifty dollars around for whoever to find.”

The busker paused. “You left it for me?” He seemed sceptical.

“I don’t see any other black-haired boys with guitars who sing Spanish love songs in the rain. Do you?”

The boy gave a sort of choked gasp, like he’d tried to speak and his voice had simply failed him. “You left it for _me_?”

“Duh.” Lance gave a cocky grin and pushed Keith’s hand back, effectively smearing chalk dust over it.

The boy’s eyebrows shot up. “ _Why_?”

“Cause it’s my money and I can do what I want?” Lance gave a nervous chuckle.

“Wrong answer.”

“Well, it was my money and I could do whatever I wanted—” Lance saw the look the boy was giving him and sighed. “Okay, alright. That last song you played, the Spanish one? My mother used to sing that to me when I was young. It means a lot to me.”

“And I completely butchered it.” Lance had never seen someone look so mad at themselves before.

“No, no!” Lance chuckled. “No, you did well. So, yeah. People throw buskers money, right? Well I didn’t think it would be a good idea to throw a paper note.”

“You could have just handed it to me like a normal person.”

“Do I look like a normal person?”

“Yes,” the busker replied. Lance turned to face him, deadpan. His hands were a mix of colours, his face was smeared with chalk dust and his clothes were the in the mix-matched style of ‘whatever was clean’, leaving him with a pair of severely torn jeans that were clearly bought without the extra holes and a bright green shirt that was at least two sizes too small. “I change my answer. You really don’t.”

“Smart man.”

Lance turned back to his drawing. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a lot of weird lines.”

Lance stood up with a chuckle and stepped back. He took the busker’s wrist and pulled him into line beside himself. “How about now?”

“It’s starting to look like a seal.” Was that admiration in his voice?

“Yup!” Lance grinned and turned back to his piece.

“I’m gonna leave you to it,” the busker said, shifting his guitar strap on his shoulder. “I’ve got songs to sing and money to make.” He gave a wave and started walking over to the fountain.

“You looked good in that uniform!” Lance called over his shoulder. The boy made a choking sound and whirled around, but Lance had his back to him.

In some attempt to regain his composure the boy called out, “Uh, thanks,” but his voice cracked halfway through, and Lance could almost hear the blush in his voice.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you trying to mack on a random busker, or is this accidental?”

“Pidge, _shut up_!” Lance threw a pillow into his friend’s head and she gave a startled cry, almost dropping her laptop.

“Lance, I have assignments on here! I can’t afford to lose them and I haven’t saved in three hours!”

“So save your stupid essay and stop harassing me! I’m not trying to hit on the guy!”

“No, that’s why you left him fifty dollars. Why didn’t you give it to him like a normal person? I mean, I know you’re not normal but you could at least _try_.”

“He played mum’s song,” Lance said quietly. Pidge sat upright.

“Oh.”

“And I couldn’t just go up to him and hand him a fifty-dollar note ’cause he played her song. I’d probably stutter so badly he’d think I was insane. He stuffed up a bit but it was Spanish and that’s understandable and I think if he’d done it perfectly I would have cried so a massive thank you to him.”

“Hey, Lance, it’s okay.” Pidge moved her laptop off her lap and shifted closer. “It’s okay, he’s not gonna freak out.”

“He talked to me today,” Lance said blankly.

“Yeah?”

“Asked about the money. I told him he’d played a song mum used to sing and that was that. He apologised for butchering it.” Lance chuckled.

“Hey, look at that! Some random butchers your mum’s song and you still give him a whole fifty bucks? You’ve got it bad—ow!”

Lance shoved Pidge off his lap, the ghost of a smirk flitting across his face as she hit the floor.

“You ass! I try to comfort you and you injure me!”

“You’re seventeen, you’ll live!” Lance reached down to ruffle Pidge’s hair and she swatted his hand away with a grunt. “It’s just a bump to the head.”

“And the back. And the arm. And the—”

“I will slap you.” All traces of humour dissolved from Lance’s voice and Pidge gave a forced grin.

“Shutting up now.” She climbed back up onto the couch and grabbed her laptop. “Oh, for the love of—this piece of shit decided to restart and I haven’t saved my essay in _three hours_!”

“Not my problem!” Lance call in a singsong voice.

“It’s due tomorrow!” Pidge screeched, as though waving her arms at the computer could make her work come back.

“Again, not my problem!”

Lance pushed himself upright and walked out of the room and into the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner?” he asked, riffling through the cupboards.

“Spirytus Polish Vodka.”

“Pidge, wha—”

“It’s, like, the strongest alcoholic drink in existence.”

“You’re _seventeen_!”

There was a loud crash and a thump that didn’t sound healthy at all. Lance stuck his head around the corner and stared, unfazed, at Pidge. Her laptop was halfway across the room, the loading bar on the restart only a third of the way along, and she was sprawled on the floor, one leg twisted around onto the coffee table.

“What are you doing?”

“Sometimes you just have to lie on the floor,” Pidge said dazedly.

“You know Word comes with a ‘retrieve unsaved documents’ button, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you’re just gonna stay on the floor?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You want me to make you some tacos?”

There was a pause. “Yes please.”

“God, Pidge is using manners! You must have hit your head pretty hard, huh?”

There came the muffled reply of, “Fuck off, Lance.”

Lance chuckled and swept back into the kitchen. He turned on the radio and danced across the room, throwing the freezer open and pulling out a vacuum packed bag of mince. Lance flicked the stove on and started belting out lines to Cold Water.

“Lance, no, I beg of you. I hate Bieber.” Pidge appeared at the kitchen, eyes wild.

“You and me both, but it’s a catchy song! Now get out, I’m busing making you dinner. Be grateful.” When Pidge didn’t move Lance rolled his eyes and pushed her down the hall. “Go take a shower. You’ve been on that couch for two days straight and you’re not thinking clearly.” Lance shoved Pidge into the bathroom.

“Hunk is a better cook than you!” Pidge called from the other side of the door. There was a moment’s pause, then she opened the door a crack and said softly, “Can you bring me some fresh clothes?”

Lance nodded and disappeared into Pidge’s room, slightly unsettled by the fact that, despite all the robot parts scattered across the floor, it was neater than his own. He grabbed the cleanest clothes h could find, knowing Pidge wouldn’t care what he got as long as it was comfortable and belonged to her—he’d tried to make her wear a pair of his shorts once and she’d almost ripped his throat out—and started back to the bathroom.

A hand snaked out from behind the open door and took the folded clothes with a small, “Thanks,” and Lance was left to his own devices again. He arrived back at the kitchen just as Can’t Stop The Feeling started playing, and suddenly Lance was spinning across the room, grater in one hand and a fresh carrot in the other. Lance definitely did not swing his hips as he washed the carrot, or as he grated it, or as he swept the result into one of the small bowls he’d definitely not taken from home.

Lance had shredded the lettuce, grated the cheese and sliced the mushrooms by the time Pidge dragged herself from the shower. She was about to go check on her laptop when Lance whistled and pointed to the table, where tomatoes, corn, capsicum and a cucumber were waiting to be attended to. Pidge groaned but moved into the kitchen and started cutting up the capsicum.

Lance turned back to the stove and started stabbing at the mince absentmindedly. Cooking had become more of a pastime than a chore, and Lance absolutely adored every second of it. He let the mince sit for a moment, just long enough to put the tortillas in the microwave and turn it on. Then he was back to stirring, adding in sauce and the occasional spice.

“Oh, man, something smells good!” The apartment door clicked shut and Lance perked up.

“Hunk!” he called, completely abandoning the mince. Pidge gave a shriek and lunged across the kitchen, lifting the wooden spoon out of the way of the flames.

“Lance, you’re going to burn our apartment down one day! Can you not wait until after you’ve finished cooking to go see Hunk? It’s not like you didn’t see him this morning.”

“Yeah but we were both half asleep and we only saw each other for five minutes!” Lance wrapped an arm around Hunk and led him back to the kitchen. “Show Pidge how to slice a cucumber finely without getting blood on it.”

“Hey, that was one time,” Pidge said defensively.

“Yeah, and you managed to slice almost to the bone and bleed all over the table. We had to take you to the hospital.”

“Actually Hunk took me to the hospital. You stayed back here to clean up and ended up screwing around for three hours. The blood had dried on by the time we got back, you dumbass.”

Lance repeated Pidge’s sentence in a high pitched voice and stuck out his tongue, turning back to the mince. He smiled contentedly and grabbed a large bowl, tipping the meat in and draining the excess off into the sink.

“Hunk, can you grab the tortillas?” Lance asked, carrying the bowl out to the dining room. He set it down on a tile and turned back to the kitchen. The three of them carried the rest of the food in, Hunk managing to support four small bowls on his arms, and set it down. Lance swooped in first and kicked his feet up onto the table with the argument of, “The chef can do whatever they want.”

“So, what happened to the guitar boy?” Hunk asked casually.

Lance almost spat out his food. He snorted, made a choking noise and started coughing madly. Lance scrambled to the kitchen and there was a hectic minute where Hunk and Pidge heard the occasional slamming of cupboards and the clank of glasses, then Lance emerged from the kitchen, face flush, a glass of what was hopefully water in his hand.

“Oh, it went great,” Pidge cooed, a devilish grin curling her lips.

“Pidge, _so help me_ —”

“Okay, okay, I’m hungry, and we have some great tacos here, and I just want a nice, friendly, normal conversation and a proper meal, think we can manage that?” Hunk took another bite of his taco, staring his flatmates down.

“Nothing much. He found the fifty dollars and just couldn’t understand why such a marvellous person as myself would give it to him—”

“ _Lance_.”

“Okay! Okay. He asked about the money and I told him that he played a song my mother used to sing and he was very happy with that answer. I think he choked a bit when I told him he looked good in the uniform.”

“You did what?” Pidge shrieked, kicking her chair backwards in her haste to stand up. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“It’s no big deal!” Lance gaped.

“It’s flirting, is what it is!” Pidge turned to Hunk, grinning madly. “Tell him it’s flirting!”

“Sorry, man, gotta agree with Pidge on this one.”

“You’ve seen the uniforms in that shop! I’ve seen uglier uniforms in name-brand stores! And it just suits his body shape.”

“Oh, so you were checking him out?” Pidge pushed.

“No!”

“He was hiding under a table and you managed to get a good look at how the uniform fits him _without_ checking him out?” Pidge raised an eyebrow.

“It suits his body shape, _okay_!”

“Sure, Lance.”

“It does!” Lance’s voice was getting desperate. “It’s like when you see two people wearing the same dress—”

“Why are we talking about dresses now?” Pidge asked, exasperated.

“It was the first example I could come up with! Ugh, whatever! You know how you see two people wearing the same dress, and it’ll look awesome on one person, and not really good at all on another?”

“Yes,” Pidge huffed.

“Yes.” Lance nodded and made up another taco. He dropped back into his seat and kicked his feet up again, believing he fully earnt the right to.

“Okay, that’s it, you’re on washing up duty,” Hunk huffed. He stood up and kicked his chair in. “I have to run some numbers for Allura.”

“Did Altea finally go bust?” Pidge joked, knowing full well that Hell would freeze over before the restaurant went bankrupt.

“No—way,” Hunk replied with a grin.

“Man, I thought you were a chef, why are you running the books?” Lance asked, standing and scooping up the plates and bowls from the table.

“Cause the usual bookkeeper was sick today and didn’t get a record. It’s nothing major, just tallying some numbers, but Allura wants it done by tomorrow, so I’d rather not be interrupted by your terrible renditions of the Top Twenty Pop Hits.” Hunk left with a wave and turned to his room, pulling a USB out of his pocket as he went down the hall.

“Well, I’m going to go pray that Word does as you have said and lets me keep my three-plus hours of work. If you hear strange noises at midnight it would be best to remain in your room.” Pidge hopped down from her chair and dragged herself to the living room. There was the sound of something dragging across carpet.

And that left Lance alone with his thoughts.

Lance moved to the kitchen and turned the radio down low. He always knew how much the others ate so there were almost no leftovers, meaning he had lots of cleaning up to do.

Just as Lance was turning on the tap he heard what he hoped was a scream of joy from the living room and the sound of something small hitting the carpet. Lance just did not want to know.

Washing up always seemed to clear Lance’s head. It was a repetitive task that required minimal attention, and so he could let his thoughts wander. He’d never admit it, but some of his greatest inspiration came from that hazy time when he was washing up, or cleaning the apartment, or folding the laundry. Those little moments where you didn’t have to think.

Lance almost punched himself when the first thing he thought about was the busker. A boy he didn’t know. You’re a freak, Lance told himself. But he couldn’t help it. The song he’d sung, and the way he’d sung it. And Lance hadn’t been lying when he’d said Keith had looked good. Maybe he’d been lying when he’d denied checking him out.

Maybe.

Or maybe he was just going crazy, fantasizing—thinking, _thinking_!—about a random busker. A good-looking busker he’d admit, but still—

_Lance, for the love of God!_

Lance groaned and pushed his hands into the soapy water, almost smashing the bowl he was holding. He rubbed at it a little too aggressively and dumped it on the drying rack a little too forcefully.

“Hey Pidge?” Lance called, hesitantly lifting another bowl.

“Eh?”

“You know that feeling you get when you have a really terrible idea that might actually turn out not all that terrible, and you don’t know whether or not to go through with it?”

“I am familiar with the feeling.”

Lance nodded and started scrubbing at the next bowl. He had literally had the worst idea in existence. Even worse than vegemite chocolate. Even worse than broom shoes. Even worse than that stupid table he’d seen in that weird shop that had plungers for legs.

And Lance was going to go through with it.

“Pidge?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I’m gonna give him my number.”

There was the sound of something smashing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O wow look at that. Lance has guts. Go little Blue boy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance tries really hard to be smooth and it sorta works? Featuring v v expensive pens + a guitar with female pronouns.

Lance was late, Keith noticed, and his choice of clothing was much. . .neater than it had been the day before. He went straight into setting up, straight into drawing, and Keith was aware of the blissful smile on the street artist’s face.

Keith noticed after a few moments that he was wearing an identical smile.

A soft blush rising, Keith turned back to his guitar and hummed softly, tuning up. It felt like an extension of his body, his very being—twelve years of constant playing would do that to you. Keith could tell when a note was off by just a fraction, even more so when he was the one playing. He strummed a couple of chords, just to check everything was tuned perfectly, and turned back to the crowd of people milling around, watching him.

Thursdays were always slow, and the group that had gathered before the fountain was probably most of the people in the mall at the time. Keith smiled and looked up at the waiting group.

“Any suggestions?” he called, an undisguisable note of joy in his voice. Immediately a chorus of replies rang out and Keith honed in on the first song title he recognised. He struck a chord to silence the group and began on a lilting melody, his voice attracting more people than his tuning alone.

Keith looked up at one point, halfway through the song, and his breath caught at the sight of Lance, eyes closed, hand frozen in mid-air, hair tousled by the slight breeze, positively _enraptured_ with Keith’s performance. Keith sucked in air and continued, but his singing had lost its fluidity, its motion, and he mentally cursed himself.

You can’t let yourself get distracted, he chastised himself, despite how gorgeous Lance looks right now.

The most surprising thing about the thought was that thinking it didn’t surprise Keith at all.

Keith finished his sub-par performance, but the audience seemed to enjoy it and the money was already flowing in. A quick swig of water and a throat-clearing cough later Keith was ready to sing again, albeit in a slightly lower quality than when he’d begun. If he didn’t get a hold of himself, he was going to have to move away from Lance. Keith didn’t like that idea much.

Keith’s focus snagged on another song request. He had to research it, but his performance was good—great, even—and he was glad of it, because singing distracting him from thinking about Lance.

Four or so songs later and the crowd was thinning. Mostly just teenagers now, people who had time to kill and places they didn’t want to be, and Keith was pretty sure he’d seen at least two of those boys over there leaving the high school near his flat. He was also pretty sure their red eyes and dazed expressions weren’t from a lack of sleep.

One of the schoolboys called out, “Play something sexy!” and a second later he had his tongue down his friend’s throat, much to the amusement of the other boys in the group. From the looks of things, the one who’d just been kissed was enjoying every minute of it, and Keith was worried he’d have to physically chase them away, but the soberest of the group split the pair a second later and waved an unlit joint in his friend’s face, motioning to the children and the elderly who were milling about.

The sound of jangling laughter caught Keith’s attention and he turned his head, shocked. A sound like that couldn’t have come from the gangly, childish Lance, but there he was, laughing away at the group of boys. He stood to survey his artwork, smearing pink across his black pants, and Keith found his expression melting into something softer. Lance wasn’t gangly, he noted. Yes, he was tall, and yes, he was thin, but he was the opposite of awkward—usually. Keith hadn’t pretended not to notice, in the few days Lance had been there, all the times he’d trip over his art supplies or knock a knee into his chair, but he wasn’t awkward in his movements. He was fluent, entirely in tune with the way his body worked, the way his limbs moved and his joints flexed and his muscles pulled.

And his voice, Keith noted, was quite pleasant to listen to. It wasn’t overly high, nor ridiculously deep, but it had clearly broken, and Keith could only chuckle at the thought of a prepubescent Lance, stumbling about on a giraffe’s legs, voice higher than a kitten’s mewling, speech faster than a hummingbird’s wings.

“Any _other_ requests?” Keith called, that same cheery note in his voice, as he turned away from the group of teenagers who were starting to shuffle away.

“Play the Macarena!” came the unmistakable voice of Lance, and for a moment Keith wondered if the boy was psychic and had spoken purely because Keith had been thinking about him.

“I am _not_ going to play the Macarena!” Keith gaped, turning to face Lance. The street artist laughed again, and it was too beautiful of a sound to be trapped in that open-air mall, the one that now felt so tiny, so cramped.

“Aw, come on!” Lance teased, like they’d been friends their whole lives, like they weren’t just acquaintances who’d shared a single conversation. He even stood up, put his hands on his hips. “I’ll dance, if you want!”

Keith blushed furiously and turned his head away. “No!” He couldn’t help laughing. “No, I don’t want you to dance!”

“If you play the song I promise I won’t!” Lance bartered, batting his eyelashes.

“You have a customer,” Keith pointed out, his blush fading ever so slightly.

Lance blinked and turned, grin cracking his face. “Ah, my apologies, sir! Please, come this way.” He motioned to the seat but the man shook his head and held out his phone. Lance studied it for a moment before nodding and sitting down, pulling his sketchpad onto his lap.

And then Lance wasn’t Keith’s problem anymore.

Not that he’d been a problem in the first place.

Keith took a deep breath and started to play along to the first song someone called out, realising after a few seconds that he didn’t actually know the piece. There was an uproar of laughter as he fumbled, much of it from himself, and Keith scrolled through his phone. He found the sheet music just as a crystalline voice started singing and again, it took him a moment to realise that Lance, of all people, was singing along.

Keith jumped straight into the piece and managed to flick his gaze up to the street artist, who was handing over a ten-dollar sketch to the man before him. Keith hit a sour note and winced, but Lance covered him, raising his voice just a touch to draw the crowd’s attention. He stood, crossed the open plaza and propped a foot up on the fountain beside Keith, who was most definitely not blushing.

The music score suddenly became fascinating.

Lance seemed to notice that Keith was paying way more attention to his phone than was completely necessary and reached out a hand to tilt Keith’s chin upwards. The faint pink dusting on Keith’s cheeks roared into a vibrant crimson flush and he stumbled to keep playing, his fingers suddenly leaden. Lance kept singing, his voice still projecting to the group around them, but he had quietened so he wasn’t shouting in Keith’s face.

For a second Keith hesitated, then his fingers found the chords of their own accord and he was strumming along to Lance’s singing, like Keith was backup and Lance was the real busker, not a street artist who had just joined him. It felt strange, playing as backup, but strange in a good way. Keith liked it.

Lance reached the crescendo of the song and finished with a lilting, singular note. He tilted Keith’s head up with a single finger and smiled just a little too flirtatiously for Keith’s liking, then he was leaning back and clapping, saying something about how Keith was an inspiration, continuing under the pressure of such a great singer, and people were laughing, but Keith’s hearing was fuzzy and he couldn’t focus on anything except that glowing smile that was forever burned into his mind.

Lance seemed to vanish into the crowd, many of whom were throwing glinting coins and fluttering notes into his guitar case. Keith tried to follow him with his eyes, but one moment he was right in front of the fountain and the next he was back over at his little section of pavement, chalk in his hand and a grin on his face like he’d never left.

That just wasn’t fair.

Keith actually had to focus on his singing now. Had to make sure his fingers didn’t wobble on the frets. Had to focus on stopping his voice from cracking or shaking or giving out mid song. A couple more pieces and he didn’t have to focus so hard on not turning into a stuttering mess.

Come lunch break Keith was considering whether or not to pack up his guitar and take it with him to eat when the Devil personified strode ever so casually from his ridiculously realistic drawing of an open-mouthed shark and dropped down beside Keith, brandishing two square packages wrapped in white paper.

“Chicken and lettuce, or ham, cheese and tomato?” Lance asked, holding out the two white packages to Keith.

“What?” Keith was genuinely confused.

“You always go and buy lunch and it can’t be fun having to lug your guitar to and fro every day just ’cause people can’t be trusted so I made you lunch, but I didn’t know what you liked so I made two. I’ll have the other one.”

“You didn’t have to,” Keith gushed, holding up his hands. Lance just rolled his eyes.

“Well I did and I can’t eat both, so make up your mind.”

Keith considered them for a moment. “Chicken and lettuce?”

“Yours.” Lance dropped the sandwich into his hands and Keith unwrapped the white paper, taking a hesitant bite.

“It’s not poisoned,” Lance said, his mouth already full of bread and ham.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Well, this isn’t really cooking. . .but yeah, I can cook.”

“Sure,” Keith chided, elbowing Lance softly in the ribs.

“I can!” Lance called, almost like he was trying to fight for his honour, or some equivalent.

“Lance, I’m just having a go at you.” Keith chuckled and took another bite of his sandwich. He nodded appreciatively. “What do you know, this isn’t terrible.”

Lance laughed, and Keith actually stopped chewing so he could fully absorb the sound. When Lance’s laughter died Keith took another bite of his meal and turned his head, looking out at the people around them.

“Thanks for helping me out earlier,” Keith said, a little reluctantly.

“Eh, no problem. You looked like you were struggling and I just had to step in.”

“Well I was, so thank you.” He didn’t mention that incredibly intimate moment at the end of the song. Partly because his cheeks were already burning. Partly because he wasn’t sure just what Lance had meant by it. Mostly because his heart was fluttering at the sight of Lance even just _being_ beside him, hair floating on the breeze, smile small but eyes alight.

“No big deal!” Lance chucked. “I’m not the best singer, so I do hope I didn’t ruin your spectacular performance.”

“Not the best—Lance, it was crazy how good you were! You’re not a professional singer, you probably don’t take lesson, and you were topping me! I was a mess!”

It took Keith a moment to realise he’d struck a nerve, but by then the smile was back on Lance’s face. But this smile was different—too big, too fake—plastered on.

“You okay?”

Lance started, a little surprised that Keith had seen through his smile, but nodded. For just a second the old smile—the real smile—flitted back, then Lance’s face fell.

“Just. . .thinking.” He looked over at his set-up, checking everything was still where he’d left it.

“I can’t believe you just leave your stuff out where anyone can get at it,” Keith remarked, tearing through the crust of the second half of his sandwich. He squinted. “That weird black box-bag thing; what does it say?” Keith had his phone out.

“Copic. It’s the brand. They’re—”

“Really fucking expensive!” Keith gaped. “ _Eight dollars for one pen_?!”

“I was gonna say ‘good quality’, but yes, they’re pretty expensive.”

“That’s gotta be at least a thousand dollars, just sitting out in the open.” Keith was eyeing off the pens.

“No, no! Only a few hundred, at most. Plus refills, and special paper to draw on, plus the case itself—”

“ _And you just leave it out in the open_?”

Lance looked at Keith like he’d just asked, ‘Do you breathe air?’ The busker’s eyes were wide, his face even paler—if that were even possible.

“Well, yeah.”

“My guitar isn’t worth that much and I don’t leave her out for anyone to grab.” Keith lifted the guitar and ran a hand down the neck.

“Her?”

Keith passed the guitar into Lance’s hands and looked at him expectantly. “Tell me she’s not a ‘her’.”

“It’s a lump of wood.”

“You heathen!” Keith snatched his guitar back. “Her name is Gaea and she’s not a lump of wood. She’s beautiful.” Keith’s face softened as he fitted the guitar in his hands.

“How long have you been playing?”

“Since I was five,” Keith hummed. “And I’ve had Gaea since I was twelve.”

Lance nodded along, but he was still on a completely different wavelength to the busker.

“What about you? How long have you been drawing?”

Lance snorted. “Do you mean, how long have I been drawing, or how long have I been drawing _well_? Because up until grade two it was stick figures and potato people. Head and bodies didn’t become distinctly separate until grade three, and it was about grade five that I realised I could actually draw semi-decent anatomy. I’ve been properly drawing for six, seven years now? Here.” He took Keith’s phone and went into Notes, then typed in a word Keith didn’t recognise. “Instagram. Look me up.”

“Instagram?”

“You _do_ have Instagram, right?”

Keith got even paler.

Lance groaned and typed the name of the app in under his username.

“At least tell me you know what it is?” Lance was practically begging.

“Of course I do! I’ve just never needed it.”

“That’s the point of social media! You don’t need it, but it’s still there! It’s great.” Lance passed Keith back his phone and stood, flexing his back. “Well, I have a ravenous shark to finish drawing and some more requests to complete—probably—so I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing.”

Lance swept up the rubbish, both his own and Keith’s, and tossed the papers into a nearby bin. He flashed Keith a grin before striding back over to his drawing and dropping immediately into a crouch. His hands sought out the chalk like it was all he’d ever known and with a quick flick of his wrist a waterfall overflowed from the space between two jagged fangs.

Keith couldn’t help but smile at the street artist. The way he drew, the way every muscle in his body twisted so his hand moved fluidly, the tiny shake in his shoulders each time he released a breath he surely hadn’t meant to hold, the hint of a smile that ghosted his lips whenever his sketches turned out how he’d wanted.

Keith cleared his throat and swept up his phone, looking up the Top Hundred Hits for the year and scrolled down. He stopped randomly and looked up the first song his eyes caught. Some semi-slow pop song that didn’t sound totally hideous on a guitar.

The next few hours were a dazzling blur of money and songs and the occasional stray note that the wind blew to Keith from a dazzling street artist with a childish smile.

 

* * *

  

“Oh my God, is that Instagram?” Camilla gave a bark of laughter and took a bite from an apple. She was draped over the counter, looking over Keith’s shoulder at his phone. “And the new logo is hi-de-ous.”

“That’s nice dear, go grab me something to eat.”

“Don’t call me _dear_!” Camilla ruffled Keith’s hair and he shouted in protest.

“Come on, I’m hungry!”

“You should have eaten dinner then! Your shift is literally six to nine, and you always leave that mall at four—plenty of time to eat.”

“Yes, I’m going to eat a filling meal at five in the afternoon. That’s a really great idea!” Keith grunted and dumped his phone on the counter. “I’m gonna run down the road and get a burger or something. What will it take for you to _not_ go rifling through my phone while I’m out?”

“Shout me a chicken burger and the worst I’ll do is check Lance’s account name. Throw in a large vanilla milkshake and I’ll even give you a cool username and check out his profile.”

“Done and done.”

Keith was out the door in a flash, money weighing heavily in his pocket. There was one shop that sold incredibly good, incredibly cheap food, but it was a few blocks down, so whenever Keith ventured there he had to bribe Camilla into working his shift. The night shift was generally a quiet time so he never really had any trouble, but Camilla being practically one step down from his boss didn’t hurt, either.

The nonchalant call of, “This guy is really good,” greeted Keith on his return. He dumped the order on the table and was about to reach out for his phone when Camilla shoved it into his hands with a screech of, “He called you _cute_!”

Keith scrabbled for his phone with a cry of, “ _What_? Where!” He looked down at the photo is was open on and noticed it was the same drawing Lance had dropped in his guitar case, plus a thumbnail photo in the bottom right corner of him, sitting in the same position.

The caption under the photo read, _Couldn’t help sketching the cutie at the new busking sight! Taking commission, come hmu._

A couple of the comments underneath hounded Lance for being a stalker, but from the replies he threw at them it was obvious they knew each other outside of Instagram, and the group was just messing around.

“Kid has thousands of followers, my God!” Camilla had her own phone out now and was scrolling through the hundreds of artworks he’d posted. There were a few digital drawings, but mostly photos of his sidewalk art and traditional pieces. There were, of course, selfies littered through the mix, and when Keith clicked on the most recent one, the caption listed another account. Turned out Lance had a second, personal account, with nowhere near as many followers—though the count was still in the thousands—that was set to Private.

Keith clicked Request.

 

* * *

 

Lance wasn’t there on Friday, something which both pleased and annoyed Keith. On one hand, Lance distracted him while he played, so at least he’d perform in a higher quality today. On the other. . .well, Keith didn’t really mind the distraction.

But Lance had left something for Keith, and somehow it had managed to distract him more than the boy alone ever could.

The first think Keith had noticed on his way to the fountain was a flower petal. It was massive, the span of half his arm, the centre tinged with light blue. The way it was drawn, it appeared to be falling.

Keith kept walking, and there was another petal, and another, and another. They lead back to the fountain, to the spot where Keith sat every day. There, on the ground in front of the fountain, was a drawing of a lily.

And on one of the petals was a number.

A phone number.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance cracked his back as he stepped off the train. Hunk was waiting to pick him up, partly because Pidge was still on her learner’s, mostly because Lance didn’t trust her around a car.

“How’d it go?” Hunk asked, sliding into the driver’s seat. Lance grinned and held up a bag full of art supplies.

“I still don’t see why you needed a whole day off just to get some pens.”

“Well, I did a little shopping of my own while I was out. That, and I couldn’t actually be there when he found the drawing.” Lance didn’t even need to clarify which ‘he’ he was talking about. “Speaking of—” He pulled out his phone and turned it on, tapping his leg impatiently while the Apple logo flashed on the screen.

“Anything?”

“Nothing!” Lance groaned and tucked his phone away.

Another few minutes of travelling and they were back at the apartment complex. Lance, head still buried in his phone, pushed open the main door and started up the stairs, almost falling when he miscounted and tried to walk onto a step that wasn’t there.

After watching Lance blindly fumble through his pockets for a solid minute, Hunk pushed him out of the way and withdrew his apartment key. Lance walked straight in, head still down, and dropped onto the couch, startling Pidge awake.

“How’s your assignment going?”

“Lance, that was three days ago.” Pidge cleaned her glasses and sat upright.

“So why were you asleep on the couch?”

“Programming a robot. I’m going to send it off to a university, a prototype for them.”

Hunk nodded and started into the kitchen. “Lance, where’s that cake mix you bought us on Tuesday?”

Lance muttered something unintelligible and started scrolling through his Instagram.

“Top shelf of the pantry, on your left,” Pidge translated, peeking over Lance’s shoulder.

“Uh, this is hopeless!” Lance complained, almost knocking his hand into Pidge’s face. “I got at least eighty new followers in two days, there’s no way of telling which one’s him—if he even followed me at all!”

“Are we talking about Guitar Boy?” Pidge asked.

“Duh.” Lance’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Someone’s liked pretty much every post I’ve ever made, it’s gotta be him!”

“Don’t get your hopes u—”

“ _It’s him_!” Lance shrieked, grinning madly. Pidge clapped her hands over her ears and glared at him.

Lance tapped the boy’s account and hit the Follow button, then clicked on the only video posted so far. It showed the boy on a couch in the same position he’d been in when Lance had drawn him, hands cradling his guitar—Gaea—and his smile soft and dreamy. He strummed at the strings gently, sung along to the soft tune, then he looked up, noticing the camera for the first time, and gave a startled cry of, “Camilla!” The video cut off there and Lance chuckled softly as it started to loop.

“Oh, he’s cute.”

Lance shoved Pidge away and glared at her. “The video is at least a year old.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at his hair! It’s not a mullet in the video.”

“He has a mullet?” Pidge burst out laughing.

“Hey.” Lance scrolled through his photos to the one he’d snapped of the boy. “It looks good on him.”

Pidge hummed and looked over it. “Fair enough, fair enough.”

Lance was about to go back to Instagram when an alert popped down at the top of the screen.

16:16, Unknown Number: Hey, is this Lance?

Lance screeched and threw his phone across the couch. He pulled his knees up to his chin and stared at it, practically glaring.

“Lance, if you don’t answer him, _I_ will, and neither of us want that!” Pidge taunted, waving the phone madly. Lance lunged across the couch and wrestled it from his friend’s grip. Lance stared, momentarily frozen, at the screen before him, then lifted his fingers to type.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is literally no excuse for why this took me over a week except:  
> \- school started up for me again  
> \- I'm a lazy fuck  
> I have already started writing the next chapter and I promise it won't take so long to upload it, so please d bear with me!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I attempt to make realistic texting time frames.

16:18, Lance: Yep! Lance McClain, the one and only.  
16:18, Lance: And you must be  
16:18, Lance: Ah. I just realised I don’t know your name.  
16:19, Unknown Number: Keith Kogane  
16:19, Lance: Keith Kogane. Pleased to be properly introduced.  
16:21, Unknown Number: Pleased indeed.  
16:22, Unknown Number: So how come you weren’t at the mall today, hot stuff?  
16:22, Unknown Number: NO  
16:22, Unknown Number: I’M SO SORRTGH  
16:23, Lance: Um  
16:23, Unknown Number: SHIR  
16:23, Unknown Number: I DIDNT MEAN TO SAY THAT  
16:24, Lance: Well, I’m not denying it.  
16:28, Lance: Are you okay?  
16:30, Unknown Number: I’m so sorry, my brother came back from college for a few days and he grabbed my phone while I was typing. I’ve locked myself in my room  
16:31, Lance: Sure ;)  
16:31, Unknown Number: [AUDIO MESSAGE SENT]  
16:32, Lance: [AUDIO MESSAGE RECEIVED]   
16:34, Lance: Did you just yell at your brother to apologise  
16:34, Unknown Number: Who else could I be??  
16:35, Lance: I told you, your voice sounds different when you’re singing. You’re also apparently really crap at trimming audio messages cause I still heard him call me your boyfriend at the end.  
16:35, Unknown Number: Shit.  
16:35, Lance: Well technically he’s not wrong cause I am a boy and I’m your friend so I’m your boy friend  
16:36, Unknown Number: That’s the most logical thing I’ve ever heard you say.  
16:36, Lance: Read me say. 16:36, Unknown Number: Whatever  
16:37, Unknown Number: So why were you away today?  
16:38, Lance: Had to pick up some more Copics I got ordered in, plus went on a bit of a shopping spree, and went to the closest botanical gardens to work on my landscape sketching.  
16:38, Unknown Number: Sounds like you had a packed day.  
16:38, Unknown Number: I found your Instagram last night btw  
16:39, Lance: I know, I saw the Like spam + video  
16:39, Unknown Number: You’re really good  
16:39, Unknown Number: Wait, video??  
16:41, Lance: There’s a video of you singing on your account

Keith read the message and vanished, giving Lance the opportunity to check on the post. He scrolled down to the caption.

_So I’ve hijacked my friend’s phone and he’ll be back any minute but the poor thing knows nothing about technology so here, have a video of Keith Kogane, from before he grew the stupid mullet. Purity at its finest._

Lance chuckled, an action that made Pidge look up, surprised.

“Hey, you’ve been texting for, like, half an hour. He everything you dreamed of?”

Lance flipped her the bird, never taking his attention away from his phone.

16:43, Unknown Number: Oh my god Clarissa is so dead

Lance laughed again, shoving Pidge’s face away from his phone.

16:44, Lance: I think it’s cute. Leave it up.  
16:44, Unknown Number: That’s not all you think is cute.  
16:44, Unknown Number: [PHOTO SENT]  
16:45, Lance: What are you  
16:45, Lance: [PHOTO RECEIVED]  
16:45, Lance: Oh  
16:46, Lance: OH

“ _Shit_ ,” Lance breathed, only holding up his phone at Pidge’s insistent cries of, “What, what?” Pidge cackled.

16:47, Lance: YOU FORGET ABOUT THAT  
16:47, Lance: AND  
16:47, Lance: I’LL FORGET YOU CALLED ME HOT STUFF  
16:48, Unknown Number: I’m gonna go with no  
16:48, Lance: I thought you cared about me!!  
16:48, Unknown Number: What gave you that idea?  
16:49, Lance: U called me hot stuff  
16:49, Unknown Number: My brother called you hot stuff  
16:49, Lance: He’s never seen me so he’d have to go off the description you gave  
16:50, Unknown Number: I showed him one of your selfies  
16:50, Lance: Oh.  
16:50, Lance: You cared enough to show him a photo of me??  
16:51, Unknown Number: I’ll give you that one.  
16:51, Lance: WOO!  
16:55, Unknown Number: I gotta go  
16:56, Unknown Number: My brother and I are going out for dinner @ 7 and he wants to go see a few places before we eat  
16:56, Unknown Number: Just some of the places he liked to go before he went to college  
16:56, Lance: Fair enough  
16:56, Lance: Before u go  
16:57, Lance: What’s my contact name in your phone??  
16:57, Unknown Number: It’s just ‘Lance’???  
16:58, Lance: You heathen. Give me a nickname  
16:58, Unknown Number: Mine’s still unknown number isn’t it  
16:59, Lance: Say hi to your brother for me~!!  
17:00, Unknown Number: Bye, Lance

Lance snorted but went to his Contacts all the same. He input Keith’s number and typed in his name then thought better of it and gave him the nickname _Guitar Hero_.

Perfect.

Lance leant forward on the couch to scoop up a scattering of pens, pencils and brushes from the floor. The three of them had come to the agreement that if Pidge were allowed to leave her robot pieces and tools all over the floor then Lance could leave his art supplies. The compromise had been more for the sake of Lance and Hunk, who could barely cross the living room for fear of crushing a piece of machinery the size of a bottle cap worth two-hundred and fifty dollars.

The last time that had happened Lance had had to give Pidge half his earnings every day for a week.

His previous setup hadn’t been a very rewarding place. Not at all like the open-air mall, that rewarded him not only with money but company and entertainment.

After Lance broke the tiny robot piece he and Hunk had decided that the only way they could make her see reason was to scatter Lance’s art supplies all throughout the living room. Pidge was constantly complaining about slipping on pallets, stepping on wet paint brushes and sliding across the floor on round pencils. Lance was woken once at one in the morning to a scream, a thump, and the angered shouting of, “Fine, Lance, you win! Alright? You—win!”

The amount of tools and robotic parts found lying around had miraculously dropped back after that.

Lance took his phone and his equipment to his studio. He called it that, but it all reality it was just the apartment’s study stripped down to a desk and covered in plastic sheeting. Lance’s latest big piece, a rectangular canvas roughly half his height, was covered with a smattering of colour. Lance had never been one for ‘modern art’—“It’s just splashes of colour on a canvas, Hunk, it’s not _art_!”—and so just looking at his commission made his stomach twist. But he was being payed to splash paint on a canvas so he could suck it up and splash on a little more.

Across the room stood another, smaller piece. This one Lance liked. This one he _loved._ He’d drawn it one night roughly a month prior when he’d stumbled from bed, half asleep, the memory of a dream lingering behind his eyes. The piece was a portrait painting, a face that Lance could not recognise. The figure was male, with rich chocolate hair and sparkling green eyes. He was smiling, like he’d just finished laughing and the joy was yet to fade. It was, hands down, the best artwork he had ever made—the most detailed, the most lifelike—but it wasn’t right.

Lance wasn’t deluded enough to think that the figure in his dream was a soulmate, but there was something about the boy that was important. Lance just knew it. And so he’d spent a week locked away in his studio, capturing every detail of the boy’s face before his memories failed him. The more time he spent on the piece the fuzzier his memories of it got, and it wasn’t until he passed out in front of his portrait and was woken thirteen hours later by Hunk that he realised his memory had grown fuzzy from the lack of sleep. When he woke, rested, the face was just as clear as it had been in his dream, and he realised he would never forget the boy.

No one but Lance had seen the painting. That is, Hunk had seen an older version—an incorrect version. Even then Lance had put everything into his work, so when Hunk had woken him, the first thing he had asked was, “Why are you sleeping in front of a photo?”

While the commend had sent pride blossoming in Lance’s chest, he had been mad that his artwork—this intimate piece that was just for _him_ —had been seen by someone else. But the anger had long since faded after he had looked over his piece and seen all the flaws, all the mistakes that his hazy memories had tried to convince him were right.

And now the portrait that stood before him was no longer the portrait Hunk had seen.

And still there was something wrong. Lance wracked his brain, compared his memory to the picture in front of him, but he just couldn’t see what was wrong, and it maddened him to no end.

Lance threw a protective sheet over the portrait and groaned, picking up his paintbrush and paints and turning back to his commission. He lifted an almost empty tube of red paint and held it out at the hideous canvas in front of him, then squeezed.

 

* * *

 

“So, who’s your boyfriend?”

Keith glared across the table at his brother and purposefully stabbed a cherry tomato with his fork.

“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s just a boy who is my friend.”

“So tell me about him.”

“I brought you here so we could catch up, okay? Not so you could ask me about a guy I met at the mall.” Keith cut through his fish, stabbing a piece on the end of his fork and waving it at Shiro. “I also brought you here so if you start asking stupid questions I can avoid answering them by eating.”

“Is he cute?”

Keith put the fish in his mouth and chewed indignantly.

“Come on, entertain me. I’m your brother.”

“Shiro,” Keith said, swallowing the fish, “if you don’t stop asking about Lance, I will stab you with a fork.”

“Oh, his name’s Lance!” Shiro laughed and stabbed a prawn with his own fork. “You didn’t answer my question. Is he cute?”

Keith shrugged, mouth full of cherry tomato.

“You could at least answer my questions,” Shiro teased.

“Sorry, I had a mouth full of food, and mother always taught us that it was common decency not to speak with a full mouth.”

Shiro rolled his eyes.

“And you know he’s cute,” Keith mumbled into his drink, “I showed you a photo.”

Shiro snorted.

“Is he nice, though? I mean, looks don’t hurt, but if he’s a bad person—”

“He’s nice,” Keith said, nodding. “He brought me food yesterday, and he came over to talk to me. And he sang when I muddled up a song, too.” Keith chuckled. “He’s a good singer. And an amazing artist!”

“Yeah, you showed me a couple of his pieces.”

“But it’s so weird,” Keith gushed. “Like, he doesn’t draw what’s there; he draws what he sees.”

Shiro blinked. “What?”

Keith pulled out his phone and Shiro made an, ‘Uh, uh,’ noise. “What happened to ‘common decency’?”

“You asked a question and I’m answering it.” Keith leant forward and held out his phone. It was open to a screenshot he’d taken of the thumbnail photo of him. “See, this is me—duh. That’s what I look like. And now,” he scrolled to the photo he’d taken of the picture Lance had drawn, “this is the artwork.”

Shiro flicked between the two of them for a few minutes, clearly a little confused, then it seemed to dawn on him. “I get it,” he said softly, much to Keith’s delight. “It’s like—I mean, I can’t explain it, but there’s _something_ different.”

“I know, right!” Keith sat back down and finished off his meal with renewed vigour. Shiro laughed and picked the last prawn off his plate then pulled out his wallet.

“Dessert’s on me?” he offered, and Keith nodded.

 

* * *

 

21:37, Guitar Hero: Hey, you there?  
21:45, Lancelot: Heya!  
21:46, Lancelot: How was dinner with your brother?  
21:47, Guitar Hero: Yeah, it was great. He asked about you a bit.  
21:47, Guitar Hero: Please don’t freak out.  
21:47, Lancelot: An admirer? Why would I freak out about that haha  
21:48, Guitar Hero: He’s just protective of me  
21:48, Guitar Hero: Watching his younger brother date bad boyfriend after bad boyfriend does that to a person  
21:49, Lancelot: Oh. I’m sorry  
21:49, Guitar Hero: Don’t be. It’s no big deal.  
21:50, Lancelot: They were not worthy of you  
21:50, Guitar Hero: Don’t say that, he has a big enough ego already.  
21:50, Guitar Hero: You must be the boyfriend  
21:51, Lancelot: Keith and I have come to the agreement that it is spelt boy friend  
21:51, Lancelot: With a space  
21:51, Lancelot: And you must be the brother  
21:52, Guitar Hero: You’re a funny one. I like you  
21:52, Guitar Hero: I approve of this one, Keith  
21:55, Guitar Hero: That’s very nice for you big brother but stop stealing my phone  
21:55, Guitar Hero: Sorry about that. Shiro’s a great brother but he can be a real pain  
21:56, Lancelot: Nah, he sounds cool  
21:56, Lancelot: There’s something I wanted to ask you  
21:57, Guitar Hero: Shoot  
21:57, Lancelot: Well I mean it’s not all that important and you shouldn’t feel like you having to say yes or anything it’s okay but like  
21:58, Lancelot: Did you wanna hang out sometime soon? Maybe when you’re finished busking or something?  
21:58, Guitar Hero: That’d be cool  
21:59, Lancelot: Yeah?  
21:59, Guitar Hero: Yeah  
22:00, Guitar Hero: But I can’t really hang out on weekdays cause of work. Weekend should be good  
22:00, Lancelot: What about your brother? Aren’t you spending time with him?  
22:01, Guitar Hero: Shiro can survive a whole d a y without me  
22:01, Guitar Hero: I normally work 6-10PM weekdays, 8AM-2PM Saturday and 8AM-12PM Sunday, but since Shiro is only up for a couple of days I talked with my boss about it and she gave me a Sunday shift on Saturday, and Sunday off  
22:02, Lancelot: Aw that’s awesome!  
22:02, Guitar Hero: You’re telling me! I can sleep in for once lol. I normally work weeknights as well but I got tonight off to hang out with Shiro  
22:02, Lancelot: Wow, dude. Rough.  
22:03, Lancelot: Well I expect not to hear a word from you until at least midday Sunday  
22:03, Guitar Hero: So what have you got planned??  
22:03, Lancelot: Ah  
22:04, Lancelot: I haven’t thought this far  
22:04, Lancelot: I honestly didn’t expect you to say yes  
22:04, Guitar Hero: Why wouldn’t I??  
22:06, Lancelot: Cause we have barely spoken to each other and you don’t really know me?  
22:07, Guitar Hero: I started texting you because I want to get to know you, dummy  
22:07, Lancelot: Oh  
22:07, Lancelot: Oh, okay, uh  
22:08, Lancelot: There’s an ice skating rink in town for a couple of weeks?  
22:08, Guitar Hero: Funny, Shiro wanted to go to that  
22:08, Guitar Hero: I’ll just tell him he has to go on his own!  
22:10, Lancelot: No that’s okay, I mean you go with your brother if you want!!  
22:20, Guitar Hero: Lance  
22:22, Lancelot: ?  
22:23, Guitar Hero: I want to go with you.  
22:26, Lancelot: oh  
22:26, Lancelot: OH  
22:29: Lancelot: Keith?  
22:31, Lancelot: Goodnight

 

* * *

 

Keith stumbled into the corner store and doubled over, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry—I’m late,” he panted, trying very hard not to pass out.

“Did you run the whole way here?” Camilla asked, apparently unfazed by Keith’s entrance. “I’m honestly confused as to how you haven’t been fired yet.”

“I was up talking to Lance, and then I fell asleep at, like, ten, which is so early, and I slept through my alarm, and honestly the only reason I woke up before midday is cause Shiro could hear my alarm from the living room and he’d been yelling at me to turn it off for, like, thirty minutes, and he basically threw me out of bed, and I missed the train, and had to run from home.” Keith looked like he was three seconds away from throwing up. Camilla just ran her eyes over him and cocked an eyebrow.

“Did you get any weird looks on your way here, or. . .?”

“I don’t know, probably!”

Camilla snorted, dissolving into laughter. “Your shirt—your shirt is on backwards, you _idiot_!”

Keith gave a strangled cry and bolted to the staffroom up the back of the shop. He emerged a few minutes later with a correctly put-on shirt and a mug of steaming coffee. Camilla gave him an envious glare.

“There’s a coffee machine in there if you want some,” Keith taunted, waving the mug in her face.

“I only drink real coffee, not that processed crap.”

“Technically all coffee is just processed crap.” Keith leant on the counter and bumped Camilla away with his hip. “Your turn to stock the shelves.”

“Uh-uh, no. You got here late, you get to stock.”

“At least let me finish my coffee first?”

Camilla nodded and Keith took a sip.

“So, what were you and Lance talking about last night?”

“He asked me to go ice skating with him tomorrow.”

“Like, a date?” Camilla squinted.

“No—I mean, I dunno, maybe?”

“Phone.” Camilla held out her hand, leaving no room for options, and Keith dropped it into her open palm. She scrolled through the messages and nodded.

“He’s trying to ask you out without sounding like a creep,” she finally decided, handing back the phone.

“Sure.” Keith scoffed and Camilla raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not kidding. He’s trying to be smooth.”

“You’d know all about that.”

“I’ll have you know I asked Alex out on our first date in a similar fashion, and look where that got us.”

“You’ve been dating for all of nine months, Camilla.”

“That’s more than most. Now come on!” She jokingly pushed Keith away from the counter. “Stack shelves!”

Keith grumbled and walked up to the back room. He dumped the cup in the staff kitchen’s sink, with every intent to completely forget about it so Camilla had to clean it after he left. Keith practically kicked the door open and stepped out into an aisle, grabbing the trolley of items to be shelved. He started up the back of the small shop, standing directly under the air-con and shelving as many items as possible before having to move away.

Keith had worked his way to the aisle furthest from the side windows when he was hailed by the sound of the door opening, and a chirpy, “Hey, Camilla!” from a ridiculously familiar voice.

“Lance!” Camilla drawled, and Keith could almost taste the twisted delight in her voice. She looked down the aisle to shoot him a look that screamed, “ _Stay out of sight!_ ” and turned back to Lance.

“How can I help you today?” Jesus Christ, she was almost _purring_ at him!

“Just the usual. Ingredients for cooking, pure sugar for Pidge, blah, blah, blah.” Lance appeared in Keith’s line of sight holding an armful of vegetables, fruits and a mix of chocolates, and dumped the lot on the counter. He slid a canvas bag off his shoulder and pulled another one out from inside the first.

“I see you came prepared.”

“Pidge is cramming for exams. You walk into the apartment and I don’t know what’s more common—robot parts or empty chocolate wrappers. She’s binging them like crazy and it’s coming out of my pocket.”

“Poor baby,” Camilla teased. She started ringing up the items and holding them out to Lance to place in his bags. “So, got anything planned for the weekend?”

“Keith and I are going ice skating tomorrow,” Lance said coolly, grabbing a pack of tic-tacs from the counter and tossing them in with his other items.

“Oh, a date?”

Lance flushed. “I—I wouldn’t call it that,” he stuttered, covering his mouth with his palm.

“No?” Camilla had stopped scanning to look him in the eye.

“Well, I mean—no, it’s just—I don’t know?” Lance’s eyes widened and he looked around. “Is—Is he here?”

“He’s out the back,” Camilla replied, flicking a finger towards Keith to indicate he could come back. He left it a moment before standing and walking up the front.

“Everything’s been shelved for now,” he said. Keith smiled and turned to Lance. “Hey, you.”

“Hi,” Lance squeaked. “We didn’t work out a time last night so I figured I’d ask drop by early today and ask. Since you’re not allowed to get up before midday, how about two o’clock? I’ll text you the location?”

“Two o’clock sounds good,” Keith smiled, shoving Camilla away and scanning the last of Lance’s items.

“Great, it’s a date,” Lance said, then he flushed scarlet. “I—I just meant—”

Keith chuckled and held out Lance’s bag. “It’s a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on a drawing for a Voltron roleplay I'm doing so if you wanna see a completely out of context Galra!Keith and a dorky non-canonic Galra then head over to my new Instagram art account artsanity_  
> PLease I need love  
> (The only reason there's an underscore is cause someone had already taken the name artsanity but it's a dead account I'm so mad)  
> (but yeah like the art might not be up for at least a couple hours cause backgrounds are my w e a k n e s s)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, ya nasties

 

Lance found himself arriving to the skating rink fashionably late—that is, he came to a stop outside the doors, doubled over and breathing heavily, at 2:04. He looked up at the sound of Keith’s chuckle and was pleasantly surprised to see Keith had not been deluded enough to think that the presence of ice would mean the building would be freezing cold.

“Thanks for waiting,” Lance managed, pushing himself upright. He studied Keith’s clothing choice—a red t-shirt and plain black shorts. “Congratulations on dressing appropriately. Were you waiting long?”

“Only a couple of minutes,” Keith waved it off. “And I went roller blading once—I was sweating a minute after I started skating. No way am I wearing long pants.”

Lance nodded with a chuckle and motioned for Keith to follow him into the building. “Just a tip,” Lance said as he stepped into the line. “Next time you go ice skating, you might want to bring—” Lance faltered as Keith withdrew gloves from his back pocket with a cocky grin, “—gloves.”

“Not as silly as I look, eh?”

Lance squinted and reached out, taking one of the gloves. It was a rich scarlet, and the opening was hemmed with a fine gold threat. “These are fancy,” Lance remarked. “I’m jealous. Where’d you get them?”

“Shiro bought them for me when I came out. He likes to think he’s funny, so he bought me gloves from the women’s section.” Lance snorted.

“What a wonderful brother.”

“He tries his hardest. How come you don’t have gloves?”

“Keith, babe”—Keith tried not to blush at Lance’s casual use of the pet name—“I’ve been skating since I could walk. I don’t need gloves.”

“I am determined to make you fall over at least once today. We’re here for two hours, right?” Keith shot a glance at the nearest sign and reached into his pocket for his wallet.

“Yep, two hou—oy, no.” Lance glared at Keith. “I’ll pay for you.”

“It’s only fifteen dollars,” Keith countered.

“I invited you, I’ll pay for you.” Lance pulled a fifty dollar note from his bag and stepped in front of Keith. He slapped it down on the counter. “Two adults, please. Don’t let him pay for himself.”

The woman behind the counter chuckled and nodded, grabbing change for Lance.

“Hey Keith, since you’ve never skated before, do you wanna hire one of those penguins?” Lance teased, taking his change. There were penguins lining the far wall that children used to keep their balance. Keith jokingly shoved Lance.

“I’ll go grab one for you, if you want,” Keith replied, flashing a grin. Lance pouted and walked to the next counter. He swept up a pair of skates and sat down, pulling them on. It took Keith a few tries to get the right size, and by the time he’d found skates that fit, Lance was already gliding across the ice.

Music was playing audibly from speakers around the building, and Lance was making good use of the music provided. He was spinning across the ice, much to the delight of anyone watching, and even threw in a double flip at one point.

When Keith stood and moved to the edge of the rink, Lance skated over to him and leant again the waist-high wall.

“We have to do something with your hair,” Lance mused, reaching out to lift one of the long strands. “Maybe cut it.”

“You will do no such thing,” Keith replied, chuckling. He unzipped his front pocket—how many pockets did this boy have, good _Lord_ —and pulled out something that Lance couldn’t see clearly. It took him a moment to realise that the wire pieces in Keith’s mouth were bobby pins and the rubber band around his wrist was actually a hair tie. Then suddenly Keith’s hair was pulled up off his neck in a ponytail, and he was pinning his fringe back out of his face.

Lance gaped.

“What?” Keith teased, tapping Lance’s nose as he pushed himself off the wall and walked to the opening. Keith stepped out onto the ice and wobbled, but regained his balance and pushed off, skating up to Lance. “Still think I need a haircut?”

Lance pouted and pushed himself backwards off the wall. He started to skate in a loop, never taking his eyes of Keith, so he was occasionally skating backwards. Keith cocked an eyebrow then pushed himself out towards the taller boy.

“What’s up?” he asked as he almost crashed into Lance. Lance snorted and took Keith’s arm.

“The ceiling.”

“I will hit you,” Keith mumbled, but he let Lance lead him back to the edge.

“How well can you skate on your own?” Lance asked, releasing Keith’s hand when he was in range of the wall. Keith reached out for it desperately.

“Not very well,” Keith admitted.

“Show me.”

Keith hesitated, then released his death grip on the wall and took a step out onto the ice. He started skating around the rink, going at the same awkward pace that most of the other skaters were moving at. Lance skated up beside him and kept pace easily. Both boys knew that he could easily have pulled ahead, but Lance just murmured little comments like, “Bend your knees a little,” “Keep both feet on the ground when you move,” and, “Lean forward a tiny bit.”

“You’re really helpful,” Keith said, just as he lost his balance.

Lance snorted. “Yeah, I can see that.” He held out a hand to Keith and gripped the wall with his free hand to make sure he pulled Keith up, rather than have Keith pull him down. Keith pulled on Lance’s hand and the taller boy gave a squeak. Keith was strong—like, _really_ strong.

Keith reached out his free hand and took hold of the wall. He stood and dusted ice shavings from his knees and palms. “Seriously though, this is really helpful.” Keith wiped sweat from his forehead and Lance chuckled.

“You want a drink?”

“Please.” Keith reached for his wallet but Lance waved it off and shot across the ice. Keith just hummed along to the song that was playing over the speakers. He managed another full loops around the ice before Lance walked over to the edge of the rink and leant over the wall. He had a can of Coke in one hand and was sipping lazily from a bottle of iced tea. Keith skated across the rink, with a little more force than was necessary, and crashed into the wall.

“Thanks,” Keith mumbled, slightly winded. He took the can and cracked the top, then took a long sip that half drained the drink. Lance laughed and stirred his ice tea with a straw.

“How long have we been here?” Keith asked, scanning the room for a clock.

Lance looked down at his hand. “About an hour. Why, you getting sick of me already?” He flashed a grin.

“Of course not. Now come on, show me how to spin.”

“You will break your neck and die,” Lance replied, taking Keith’s drink and setting it and his own down beside his bag.

“Sweet, let’s do it,” Keith encouraged. Lance rolled his eyes but followed Keith back out onto the ice.

“You can hardly stay upright and you want to spin? Do you understand what you even need to do?” Lance pushed himself out into the centre of the rink and spun. He kept his right leg down and his left leg moved to be almost horizontal. Keith watched on in rapt fascination as Lance bent his leg at the knee and slowly lowered it, wrapping his arms tighter around his chest as he did. A second later, Lance was spinning so quickly he was almost a blur, then he kicked his leg out and slowed his movements, coming to rest in the centre of the rink.

A few people applauded and Lance gave a mock bow, then kicked off and skated towards Keith. “You’re really game to try that?”

“The spin you did when we arrived was nowhere near that complex. Teach me that, please!” Keith was about three seconds away from pouting.

“Alright, alright!” Lance held up his hands defensively and laughed. “You just need a little more practice. But I’ll do my best.”

Keith cheered and pushed himself off the wall. He skated around the edge of the rink, leaning a little more than necessary on the turns, and kicked out into the centre of the rink rather than just go around a girl on the edge.

Lance burst out laughing at the display and skated after Keith, circling him. The song that was playing overhead finished and a new one came on. Lance clearly recognised it, as he started dancing badly to it.

“Oh God, no, I don’t know you,” Keith said, voice muffled with laughter. “I am skating away.”

Lance clicked his tongue disapprovingly and skated backwards, coming to a stop in front of Keith.

“Come on, live a little!” he teased. Lance held out a hand for Keith to take and Keith, hesitantly, accepted it. Lance grinned and skated backwards, pulling Keith after him. Keith gave a squeak and slammed his foot down, trying to gain some semblance of control over his own movements. Lance slowed just enough that Keith could regain his balance, then Lance was dancing terribly again, and still managing to keep a hold on Keith’s hand while he did.

Keith dissolved into laughter and eventually relented, joining in on the pitiful excuse for dancing. Lance grinned and twirled Keith, who gave a shriek and promptly fell over. Lance snorted and held out a hand to help him up, but Keith ended up pulling Lance down on top of him.

A teenage girl whooped at the two of them and laughed at the dual scarlet blushes, kicking away with a spray of shaved ice. Lance rolled onto his knees and Keith followed suit. Both boys reached out and placed their hands on the other’s arms. They pushed against each other to stay steady.

“Told you I’d get you to fall over,” Keith mumbled as they were steadying themselves, and Lance cackled so forcefully that his feet slid out from under him and he fell backwards onto the ice. Keith held his hand out to Lance and pulled him up, managing to ground himself enough that he just slid backwards a little rather than falling again.

“It was worth it,” Lance admitted, rubbing a hand over the damp patches on his knees.

“I’m glad you think so.” Keith smiled warmly and kicked off, skating a full loop around the rink. “Race you!” he called as he skidded past Lance.

Lance gave a cry and stumbled, feet kicking up ice the first few times he tried to push off, then he was speeding up towards Keith.

“Oh, whoops!” Keith called, stepping in front of Lance and cutting him off. “Gee, sorry, I’m still struggling with my balance. Oh, no, I’ve done it again.”

Lance pushed Keith lightly and he stumbled, snorting. Since neither of them had actually taken notice of where the race had begun they just kept circling the rink, noticeably faster than anyone else there, until Keith slammed into the far wall and draped himself over it, breathing heavily.

“Show—me—the fucking—spin—you prick,” he panted as Lance eased up beside him. Keith leant forward, one leg kicking at air in an attempt not to pitch forward, and grabbed his can from where it still stood. He took a swig and promptly drained it.

“Only if you say please,” Lance taunted in a sing-song voice, skating backwards away from Keith.

“ _Please_!” Keith stayed draped over the wall, but he turned so he was leaning back on his elbows rather than his stomach.

“Mm, one more lap, just to prove you have some control over your balance.”

Keith glared daggers but shot off across the ice. He circled around to come to rest beside Lance, cocky grin on his face. Lance nodded slowly and demonstrated a simple spin—two rotations with his non-dominant leg out to balance him. Keith tried to spin and almost fell, saved only by Lance’s arms snapping out to grab hold of him.

“Careful, buddy,” Lance chuckled, keeping a tight hold on Keith until he had regained his balance. “You have to start yourself off steady and work up to a full on spin.”

Lance decided it was his task to give Keith a clear space to practice, and started skating in a circle around him as he spun, eyeing off anyone who got too close. The teen girl who had called out to them earlier skated right up to Lance and followed him in his ring, never taking her eyes off Lance’s until she started laughing and skated away.

There were only a few minutes left in when the song playing changed to an old, slow piece that registered foggily in Keith’s brain. He watched as Lance’s circling slowed. Okay, so two years wasn’t that old, but it was old enough that Keith could hardly remember it when it was new.

Lance started dancing again, this time in long, languid motions. Keith suddenly felt like an intruder and retreated to the edge of the rink. The longer he stayed stationary the more people turned to look at Lance’s dancing.

From some murky part of his mind the song’s title surfaced—though it probably had something to do with the chorus, which repeated the name of the song four times in a matter of seconds. As the music hit a lull and the lyrics gave way to instrumental, Lance drifted over to Keith and held out his hand.

Keith stuttered out something about not being good enough, and ruining Lance’s routine, but the taller boy just smiled warmly and offered his hand again. Keith reluctantly took it just as the lyrics resumed, and then he was out on the ice, and his fingers were threaded through Lance’s like they’d been made just to hold his hand.

As Keith’s hand shifted in his own, Lance really acknowledged it. He memorised the ridges and dips and crests of Keith’s hand, felt the callouses on his thumb and fingers. They seemed so natural on Keith, those toughened patches where his skin broke and bled and healed only to break and bleed and heal again.

It proved something, proved that the work Keith did, the songs he played, were real—proved they had meaning, that time and energy and _love_ went into his performances. And in that one tiny moment, the space between one heartbeat and the next, the voice ringing in Lance’s ears was Keith’s, not Jaymes Young’s, and the guitar plucking at the back of his mind was playing something faster and livelier—and in that one tiny moment, the space between one heartbeat and the next, Lance knew, _truly knew_ , why Keith’s guitar was called Gaea.

Then _I’ll Be Good_ was surrounding the pair, and Lance was sinking back into it, his movements so perfectly attuned to the beat and the rhythm that it seemed a part of him, and he a part of it.

They hit the chorus again, and it was the second last chorus now, and Lance gently released Keith’s hands to dance around him. The way he moved, his arms almost seeming to push and pull him through the air, mesmerised Keith. And he was mouthing the words—no, no he was singing, his voice starting so softly Keith could hardly hear it, breaking out into a crescendo.

Lance jumped, landed in a graceful ark, and Keith spun. He actually, honest to God spun—two and a half rotations and he almost screamed with joy—then Lance’s hands were back in his, whisking him up from the fall that hadn’t happened.

Lance’s voice lowered, loud enough to carry, soft enough that it was like he was singing to Keith—just to Keith. And when Lance sung ever-so-softly, “I’ll be good,” well—Keith was surprised Lance couldn’t feel Keith’s pulse pounding in his wrists.

Sometime in the two hours they’d been skating the pins holding Keith’s hair up had come loose, and now his face was framed with black wisps of hair that drifted lazily as Keith moved. Lance was maybe staring, just a little, at the boy before him, and his grin was infectious. Lance could barely manage the last line of the song he was smiling so much, but he did manage.

Lance was still spinning as the song ended, and he was still standing, hand in Keith’s, as the bell rang to signal the end of their session. It took Lance’s brain a god minute to register why everyone was leaving the ice, and he looked at his watch, flustered.

“I am so sorry,” Lance gaped, untangling his fingers from Keith’s. “My train leaves in, like, twelve minutes, and it takes eight minutes to run to the station if you’re fit. And I’m really not.”

Keith snorted at that, but nodded. “Thanks for inviting me today, and for teaching me,” he said, skating to the edge of the rink beside Lance.

“It was no problem! And thank you for ditching your brother to hang out with me.”

“It was even less of a problem.”

Lance laughed and yanked off his skates. He slid into his normal shoes, still tied from where he hadn’t unknotted them when he’d arrived, and practically tossed his skates back over the counter. Keith chuckled and turned back to his own skates, the memory of the dance lingering in his mind, and his hands.

  

* * *

 

 

“How’d it go?” Shiro asked, not looking up from his book. “Worth ditching me for?”

“Oh, most definitely.” Keith dropped down into the seat beside him. He tried to read the book over Shiro’s shoulder, but his brother just shoved him away. “Hey!”

“How was it?”

“Oh, it amazing!” Keith gushed. “Lance helped me to stay stable, and he taught me how to spin, and he danced at the end—he actually danced on the ice and he danced _with me_ , and the look on his face!” Keith exhaled. He was grinning so much he could hardly speak. “The look on his face—the way he moved—it was like that song was a part of him, Shiro!”

“You sound impressed,” Shiro said, smiling softly.

“It was amazing,” Keith repeated, voice going very quiet. “He was amazing.”

Shiro smiled warmly and ruffled Keith’s hair. “You are crushing so hard, it’s adorable. I’m glad you found someone nice.”

“Woah, no, we’re not dating--!”

“I know. But you clearly want to be.” Shiro nodded thoughtfully. “He asked you, right?”

“Yeah so?”

“So, what this a date? Did he say?”

“He never directly said anything.” Keith’s voice had gone very small, very reserved. “Camilla thought it might have been.”

“Ask him,” Shiro said, looping an arm around Keith’s shoulders and giving an affectionate squeeze. “I think you’ll be surprised.”

“Okay,” Keith said softly, hands clutching his phone. The last thing he wanted was the fuck things up between the two of them, but if Camilla and Shiro were right—if there was a chance that his feelings were reciprocated—then he had to try.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance’s phone made a familiar chiming sound and he sat up, reaching across his bed to grab it. His phone lay charging on his bedside table, but the battery flashed 43%, and that ringtone was Keith’s.

23:23, Guitar Hero: Hey  
23:24, Guitar Hero: Wow, it’s late, sorry  
23:26, Lancelot: It’s okay  
23:27, Guitar Hero: Did I wake you?  
23:27, Lancelot: No, I can’t get to sleep.

Lance’s fingers hovered nervously over the keyboard.

23:37, Lancelot: I keep thinking about today.  
23:38, Guitar Hero: Oh thank God it’s not just me  
23:38, Guitar Hero: That last song you danced to,  
23:38, Guitar Hero: You were really good. Like, REALLY good.  
23:39, Lancelot: Thank you   
23:39, Lancelot: But hey, look at you, you did a spin! Without falling over, too!  
23:40, Guitar Hero: You still grabbed me :/  
23:40, Lancelot: I was in the middle of a jump, I saw you spin and didn’t notice how you landed.  
23:40, Lancelot: I was just looking out for you.  
23:41, Guitar Hero: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.  
23:41, Guitar Hero: But I bet you wish you wore gloves~  
23:42, Lancelot: Ha! I fell twice, both times thanks to you  
23:42, Guitar Hero: Oi, don’t blame the second one on me, that was entirely your clumsiness!  
23:43, Lancelot: Alright, alright, it was  
23:44, Guitar Hero: Ha!  
23:45, Lancelot: Wow, you’re right, it is late. You should sleep.  
23:45, Guitar Hero: Is that just your way of saying you don’t wanna talk anymore??  
23:46, Lancelot: nO NO I WANNA TALK  
23:46, Guitar Hero: I know, I’m just messing with you  
23:47, Lancelot: Oh, okay good, cause I really do enjoy talking to you.  
23:47, Guitar Hero: Me, too.  
23:52, Guitar Hero: Can I ask you something?

Normally Lance would shoot back a, _You just did!_ but considering how long it had taken for those three little dots to make five little words, Lance found himself thinking that probably wasn’t the best way to go. It was almost like Keith was warring with himself. So he bit back his stupid remark.

23:53, Lancelot: Yeah, sure!  
23:56, Guitar Hero: What we did today,  
23:59, Guitar Hero: Was that a date?

Lance couldn’t breathe. The air in the room was suddenly too heavy, too hot, despite the fan that was blowing a cool breeze over him. Either Keith felt the same way Lance did, and was trying to see if the feelings were reciprocated, or Keith didn’t, and he was making sure Lance didn’t either. Lance hesitated, unsure what to type.

00:04, Lancelot: Do you want it to be?  
00:07, Guitar Hero: Yes.

Lance wanted to scream.

00:08, Lancelot: Yeah?  
00:10, Guitar Hero: Yeah.  
00:11, Lancelot: Me, too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I actually did have this finished a day or so ago (don't look at me like that, I dID) but then I thought, Hey, everyone is used to my terrible updating schedules, they can wait another day and I can post it on Valentine's Day, which makes a lot of sense considering the contents of the chapter.  
> So there we go.  
> Idk about you guys but it's been Valentine's Day in Australia for 20 hours and I've been itching to post this all day but I waited for my American readers cause I'm nice so  
> (([Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scd-uNNxgrU) the song Lance and Keith dance to, isn't it pretty??))


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance, that's pretty gay

Monday was awkward, bit it was a good kind of awkward because it meant that everything the two of them had done—had said—had been real. Every few minutes Lance would look up, and Keith would blush at having been caught watching him, and then Lance would blush at having caught him, and they’d both look away, only to look back a few moments later.

Keith had fallen asleep not long after Lance had sent that last message— _Me, too_ —and when he’d woken Keith’s first reaction—first instinct, really—had been to reach for his phone. He’d been half asleep at the end of the conversation and he was worried he’d dreamed it all. Funny that, how only minutes prior he wasn’t even slightly tired, but the more he spoke to Lance the sleepier he became.

But it hadn’t been a dream, and Lance had admitted that he’d wanted it to be a date. Keith had sat staring at his phone for so long that Shiro had come in to check on him, just to remind him that Keith’s train would be leaving soon, and Shiro would not be driving him to the mall. Keith’s absentminded reply of, “Yeah, sure,” hadn’t sat right with Shiro, and a second later Keith’s phone was in his brother’s hands.

Shiro had skimmed the messages, and the relief on his face had been palpable. Though he never outright explained why he was so concerned about Keith’s state, Keith figured it had something to do with all those terrible past boyfriends.

Keith pulled himself back to the present, but one thing about the thought stuck with him. He was majorly crushing on Lance, that was obvious. But he’d never felt the way he did now about any of his previous boyfriends. Was it because he’d known them longer, so his feelings weren’t such a rush? Or had he just never really loved them at all? Keith shook his head. No, he refused to think about that.

He was not going to become one of those horrible boyfriends that had riddled his life so far. He was not going to hurt Lance.

Keith looked at Lance again, his hands moving to idly strum Gaea’s strings. He knew Lance would look up sooner or later, but right now Keith just had to ground himself, and for some reason that meant watching Lance. He watched each flick of the wrist, every twist in the muscles of his back. He lifted two similarly-coloured pieces of chalk and sketched the shading on the back legs of the giant frog drawn before him. When Lance had coloured in the two segments he started blending the colour with his fingers. He sat back on his haunches and wiped a hand across his brow, smearing green-brown chalk dust through his eyebrows and over his forehead.

Lance looked up, eyes meeting Keith’s. And this time Keith didn’t turn away. He chuckled, pointing to his own forehead, and Lance rubbed at the chalk dust with the back of his wrist, grinning. Keith smiled warmly and strummed a chord on his guitar. Lance cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. Keith took that as a challenge.

Without taking his eyes off Lance, Keith played, word for word, _I’ll Be Good_ —which he definitely hadn’t learned the night before, purely for his love of the dance Lance had performed the previous day. Lance’s cocky smile turned into a warm, pleasantly surprised one. It was Lance’s turn to blush, now.

There was the rattling of coins landing in the guitar case. Keith gave a cocky smirk and flicked his gaze up, to the woman waiting to request a commission from Lance. Lance scrambled to face her and she laughed lightly.

“Dork,” Keith mumbled, the tips of his ears turning pink.

 

* * *

 

Lance had packed Keith lunch again, this time offering him the choice between a chicken-and-salad-stuffed pita bread and pulled-pork-and-salad wrap. Keith took the latter without complaint and took a slightly too-large bite, just so he didn’t have to speak. There was a minute of awkward silence, then both boys simultaneously started with, “So—?”

They both laughed and Keith took another tentative bite of his wrap. “You go first,” he insisted.

“What we said last night. . .that actually happened, didn’t it?”

“It did,” Keith said, voice soft.

Lance was quiet for a while. “Things are moving pretty quick between us, huh?”

“Yeah,” Keith admitted, making a sound halfway between a snort and a breathy laugh.

“Do you. . .do you regret what you said?” Lance looked so nervous Keith wanted to throw his arms around him.

“No, no.” He paused. “Do you?”

“No!” Lance held up his hands defensively, eyes wide. “No, no way!”

Keith chuckled and took another bite of his wrap, smiling at Lance, who in turn blushed and tore at his pita bread. They slipped into a comfortable silence, fuelled by the food Lance had brought in.

“So, you enjoyed yesterday?” Keith asked eventually.

“Definitely,” Lance gushed, nodding.

“Would you be interested in doing it again? Not ice skating, I mean, but I got a shift change on Wednesday cause some kid on the morning shift had a lecture, so I’ll be free in the afternoon if you wanted to hang out.”

“Yeah?” Lance grinned. “That’d be. . .yeah. That’d be good.”

Keith relaxed and smiled. “So, maybe if we go out at three? I’ll meet you at work?”

“Cool. Where were you thinking of going?”

“Well, we don’t really know each other very well you have to admit. So I thought we could go somewhere we can talk, so not, like, the movies or something. And then I thought, well. . .nah, it’s a bit—”

“Oh, go on, tell me,” Lance pushed, and he was smiling that childish smile that made Keith wonder if Lance was actually thirteen, and how could he refuse?

“I had thought,” he said, scuffing the bricks beneath him with his toe, “that we could check out the zoo.”

“The zoo?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a bit—”

“No, no!” Lance held up his hands, and now he was grinning. “That’d be awesome. They got a new bunch of monkeys in just the other day, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, relieved Lance hadn’t laughed in his face. “Camilla told me about it. She was the one who suggested I ask you out after my shift.”

Lance nodded. “Thank her for me. I can’t wait.”

“Great,” Keith said, shoulders falling as he relaxed. Then he lifted his head and tensed. “Nope,” he said, almost pulling Lance onto his lap in an attempt to hide himself. “Nope, no, no way—”

“What?” Lance gaped, a little surprised he was being used as a human shield.

“That’s my brother,” Keith said, pointing awkwardly across the mall. Lance’s eyes widened.

“ _That’s_ your brother?” He visibly paled.

Despite Keith’s attempts to hide, it was incredibly easy for Shiro to find him. Shiro strode up to the pair and stood before them, grinning cockily.

"What are you doing here?" Keith hissed.

“I leave tomorrow morning and all the time I’ve been here I’ve barely seen you.”

“Lies,” Keith mumbled.

“Can’t I come and check up on my brother?” The innocence leeching into Shiro’s voice was decidedly fake. “And you must be Lance,” he said, turning to the boy.

“You’re Takashi Shirogane,” Lance breathed, eyes wide.

“The one and only.”

“Why didn’t you tell me your brother is _Takashi Shirogane_?”

“Why does it matter?” Keith asked, eyebrow raised.

“Because he’s a professional cage fighter who could snap me like a twig.” Lance’s eyes were drawn to Shiro’s prosthetic arm. He’d heard the stories about how the injury that had given him said arm had been the one that made him decide to end his career.

Shiro laughed. “I’m hoping I won’t have to,” he said, smiling.

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith said, teeth clenched. “Stop it.”

“Come on, I’m just teasing.” Shiro laughed, and Keith glared.

“Yes, yes, and you were joking when you threatened to break Jake’s arm.”

Lance squeaked.

“Don’t let him scare you,” Keith said, moving out from behind Lance. “He’s just a big softie.”

“Says the boy who hid behind me the second he saw him,” Lance muttered, shooting Keith a good-natured glare. Keith just shrugged.

“Well, I’m a college student now,” Shiro said, chuckling.

“You could still snap me like a twig,” Lance pointed out. Shiro didn’t disagree.

“Anyway, you should be getting back to your art, and Shiro should be going home. Hmm?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, fine. I see how it is. You’d rather hand ut with your boyfriend than your own brother.” Shiro turned to walk away.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Keith called after him. Shiro just waved his prosthetic arm and continued walking. Keith sighed and turned back to Lance. “Ignore him.”

“Right.” Lance nodded numbly. “So, Wednesday, yeah?”

  

* * *

 

 

They met at Keith’s work, just like he’d suggested, and Keith took off to the back room to change. He’d emerged a few minutes later in a pair of loose jeans, knock-off Convers that looked twice as good and a black shirt with a green alien head on the front. He was in the process of tying his hair back when he left the staffroom.

The other worker for that shift looked between Keith and Lance with poorly hidden disdain and turned her back. Lance stuck his tongue at the back of her head and Keith grabbed his arm, dragging him out of the shop before he could begin an all-out flame war with some random homophobe.

“Try not to anger the co-workers,” Keith said playfully as they walked to the train station. “She might get a shift change just to annoy me.”

“She doesn’t look like she could be bothered brushing her hair this morning, let alone changing her work schedule just to hassle you,” Lance said, snorting. “Did you even see it? Screams ‘bedhead’ like nothing else.”

Keith chuckled at that and stepped up to the platform. “Okay, so, next train’s in. . .eleven minutes.” He walked over to the ticket machine and punched their information in, calling to Lance after a moment to get their train number.

Lance sat down on one of the metal benches and slung off his small backpack. He withdrew a sketchbook and one of those material pencil cases with ten zippers that all led to the same compartment, made in five shades of blue. From it he withdrew a set of pencils tied with a rubber band, an eraser, and something that looked like a fat pencil made of rolled paper. Lance looked across the train tracks to the next platform and began to sketch the rough outline of the woman reading on a seat. He managed to get the basic outline of her figure down before a train block his view. When it moved, the woman was gone.

“You do that often?” Keith asked, looking over Lance’s arm at his drawing. Lance sketched in a few more lines as shading and used the fat paper pencil to blend the graphite.

“Only for interesting-looking people.”

“You drew me.”

“Duh.” Lance flashed him a grin, not moving his gaze from the drawing. Keith blushed.

“Oh. Yeah, right.”

Lance continued his drawing, astounding Keith with just how quickly he could turn lines on paper into a realistic drawing. By the time their train arrived, Lance had drawn the clothes and hair of the woman in such high detail that they looked ready to step off the page.

The pair sat down on the train and Keith checked the map on the wall. “Okay, we get off in. . .eight stops.”

“Wait, do we get off on the eighth stop, or there’s eight stops and then us?” Lance lifted his head.

“We get off on the eighth stop.”

“Are you sure?”

“Lance, I’m sure,” Keith replied, laughing, as he twisted back around to face forwards. “It’s going to be fine.”

Lance nodded silently and rolled the blending stick between his thumb and forefinger. “I know, I know.”

Keith smiled and wrapped an arm around Lance’s shoulders, shaking them lightly. Lance couldn’t help smiling at that.

The trip consisted of Lance finishing his first drawing and starting one of the gorgeous husky seeing-eye dog across the aisle. It was a beautiful dog, and the drawing definitely did it justice.

When the train reached the eighth stop, Keith dragged Lance off and onto the platform. He checked the schedule for return trains and studied his watch. “We’ve got about three hours before the next train.”

Lance studied the trains and smiled. “This one,” he pointed to a train that arrived about fifteen minutes prior to the one Keith had pointed out. “It’ll take me to the station right near my apartment.”

Keith nodded. “That sounds cool. I live in the opposite direction to that station, so I’ll hang back and catch the next train.”

“Okay. But is it going to take us three hours to walk around the zo?”

“It’s a very large zoo. Plus, I’d like to take photos. And I was pretty sure you’d want to sketch some of the animals.”

Lance blinked. “Really?” He smiled.

“Yeah. I mean, if you don’t want to, there are earlier trains—”

“No, no—I was actually hoping I’d get the chance to. That’s why I brought my drawing things in the first place.”

“Oh. Okay. Wow, great minds think alike, eh?” Keith smiled, hands moving to twist each other nervously.

Lance seemed to realise, on some level, that Keith was nervous, and took one of Keith’s hands in his own as they stepped into the zoo’s entrance. “You okay?” he asked softly, swiping a map from a nearby stand.

“Fine,” Keith said, voice cracking.

“You’re really not,” Lance replied, smiling warmly.

Keith sighed. “It’s just. . .going ice skating was amazing, and I don’t know if a trip around the zoo can compare.”

“Then don’t compare,” Lance said simply. “They’re two completely different activities. For example,” Lance tugged Keith over to the otter display, “I’m not about to start dancing with one of these guys. Am I?”

“I dunno,” Keith said, managing a laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Lance dropped Keith’s hand, just to press his own over his heart in mock hurt. “You wound me.”

“I only speak the truth.” Keith looked at the map and grinned. He grabbed Lance’s hand and dragged him off to the right, despite the taller boy’s pleas to look at the otters. He insisted Lance could look at them on the way back and dragged him to the only other exhibit on that side of the entrance.

“Keith, there’s a snake,” Lance said, pointing at the ground up ahead.

“Yes.”

“No, Keith, you don’t understand, _there’s a snake_!”

“Yes,” Keith said again, lifting the map.

“You took us to the snake exhibit?” Lance asked, gaping as a handler grabbed the snake’s tail and dragged it back towards herself. She lifted the snake and grabbed it just behind the head, then lowered it back into a glass case.

“How many times do I have to say yes?” Keith asked, laughing. He walked over to a display case and leant close to the glass, looking in on the snake. The snake had curled up in the glow of the heat lamp, a very obvious bulge in its coils.

“But why?”

“Because snakes are cool.” Keith walked to the next exhibit. A white-lipped python lifted its head to look between Lance and Keith, before curling in on itself.

“They all look half dead,” Lance muttered, practically clinging to Keith’s arm.

“It’s cause they’ve just eaten,” Keith replied, placing a hand over Lance’s. “Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you. Oh, look, they’re feeding those ones!” Keith jogged over to the next row of tanks in time to see a python down a rather large rat. Lance sneered.

“You wanna get out of here?” Keith asked softly. Lance nodded.

Lance decided that that one otter, _over there on the rock, Keith; oh, he’s waving_ , was the perfect model for his first sketch. It was probably because the otter looked half asleep, and wasn’t moving as much as the others were. Whatever the cause, Lance ended up with a realistic drawing of the otter, and Keith got to spend a little more time watching the snakes, even getting the opportunity to hold one.

The grand prize for the zoo tour was a double page spread in Lance’s sketchbook of realistic animal drawings. That, and a break at the end where the two boys sat licking at rapidly-melting ice-creams and pointing out which of the new monkeys looked the most like who.

“We should call that one Keith,” Lance joked, pointing at the monkey with ridiculously long fur.

“Hey, look,” Keith said, motioning towards the monkey that had just fallen face-first off a climbing rope, “it’s you.”

Keith earned a smear of ice-cream across the cheek for that.

Lance checked his phone and pouted at the time. “I gotta run. Hey, come here.” Lance pulled Keith up beside him and held out the phone to snap a selfie. Keith chuckled, ending up with a pretty cute smile in the photo.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keith called after him. He smiled and leant back in the plastic seat, finishing off his drink. A few minutes later Keith in turn stood to go, and started walking. He’d just left the little café when a woman ran up to him.

“Hey,” she called, falling into step beside him. “You left this at your table.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Keith took what the woman handed him and she nodded with a smile, heading back into the café. Keith looked down at the object in his hand and his eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t own a black leather wallet.

But Lance did.

  

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t stalking. Keith tried to convince himself that returning a dropped wallet to the address found inside _was not stalking_. He didn’t feel very convinced.

Lance lived in an apartment building, so Keith had to ring up at the front to find out his floor and room. Then it was the simple process of going upstairs and knocking on the door and returning the wallet. Only, it wasn’t that simple.

But it really was.

Keith huffed and started up the stairs. Third floor, fifth room on the left. Simple enough.

When Keith neared the fifth room on the left, third floor, he was met with a chorus of shouts.

“Come on, Pidge!” cried a familiar voice.

“No!” called an equally as familiar voice.

“Aw, Pidge, please? Just one game?” begged a strikingly unfamiliar voice.

Keith knocked hesitantly on the door and there was a call of, “Crap, guys, quiet.” Then Lance was opening the door. “How can I—Keith!” His whole face seemed to light up.

Two shouts of, “Keith?” echoed from inside the apartment and there was the distinctive sound of a body knocking into something.

“Uh, hey,” Keith said, slowly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Just, you left this at the zoo.” He held out the wallet. Lance patted himself down, hands flying to his pockets, and his eyes went wide.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the wallet. He looked back into the apartment before turning to Keith. “You wanna come in? We’re trying to convince Pidge to put her laptop away and play board games with us.”

“I dunno, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Nonsense.” Lance scoffed and took Keith’s wrist lightly, pulling him inside. “It’s no trouble at all. Besides, Hunk makes homemade pizza on game night, and there’s always more than enough to go around.”

Keith found himself in a living room that was messier than Shiro’s college apartment. A girl with short-cut hair was sitting on the couch, staring attentively at him, and a larger man, roughly Keith’s own age, had clearly been in the process of pulling on her arm when Keith had arrived.

“Oh my God, he’s real,” the man said, grinning.

“Keith, this is Hunk and Pidge.”

Keith blinked at the girl—Pidge—then his eyes widened. “Katie?”

Pidge’s eyes narrowed as she studied Keith, then her face lit up with recognition. “Keith!” She leapt up from the couch and sidestepped the coffee table to hug Keith. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Uh,” was all Lance could think to say. He cleared his throat. “You two. . .know each other?”

“Our brothers are practically dating! But they refuse to admit it.” Keith turned to face Pidge. “How’s Matt? Last I heard he was trying to signal for aliens to come take him away from college.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lance said, walking over. “Let me get this straight. Your brother is gay for my roommate’s brother?”

“How could you not tell on Monday? You met the guy.”

“You met Takashi and you didn’t tell me?” Pidge gaped.

“It sipped my mind—whatever!” A sly grin formed on Lance’s face and he whirled to face Pidge. “But I think we forget that you didn’t recognise Keith, despite me showing you a video of him playing guitar.”

“I haven’t seen him since he was a puberty-stricken fifteen-year-old without a mullet. Forgive me for not recognising him sooner.”

“You also called him cute,” Lance teased. Pidge blushed.

Keith grinned cockily at Pidge. “Aw, I see how it is. Sorry Pidge, you’re a little too female for my liking.”

Lance snorted.

Pidge’s face was eerily calm. “Hunk,” she said, snapping her fingers, “go get Monopoly. We are having games night right now.”

Keith cocked an eyebrow. “You’re just a sore loser cause you know I would have won last time.”

“ _Please_. I was this close to winning.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, I guess we’ll never know who would have won, since your brother flipped the table after landing on one of my properties. _Five times in a row_.”

Pidge was positively seething. “Hunk,” she snapped, “hurry up! I have a mullet-sporting, guitar-playing, Ed Sheeran wannabe to _thrash_ at Monopoly!”

Keith only grinned slyly.

 

* * *

 

Two rounds of Monopoly, three matches of Cards Against Humanity, an intense game of Bullshit and seven slices of pizza later, Keith was ready to crash. He had, of course, been victorious on every front but one—and even then he’d only lost to Lance’s, _And the Academy Award for ‘Not giving a shit about the Third World’ goes to ‘God’_ play.

Pidge had passed out halfway through the game of Bullshit, which left the remaining three boys struggling to continue, but it was fun and they were all so tired they didn’t really care anymore.

Lance had said something to Keith about it being too late to go home, but Keith’s brain wasn’t working properly, and he was actually wondering if there’d been something in the pizzas Hunk had made.

Hunk carried Pidge to her bed then set out a few blankets on the couch for Keith, he and Lance having come to the decision that if Keith tried to go home he’d probably fall asleep in the middle of the road.

It only took a few minutes for him to fall asleep, bundled in the blankets set aside for him.

Cute had never been a word Lance could see describing Keith, but it seemed to fit just then, in that little moment of time where Keith was fast asleep and Lance was close to being the same. Keith had taken his hair out of the ponytail near the end of the first game of Monopoly, and now it fell haphazardly across his face. Lance smiled dazedly and stroked his fingers lightly through Keith’s hair, brushing the stray strands back from his face.

Lance stayed, dazedly stroking Keith’s hair, for just long enough that his eyes began to burn and his eyelids to droop. Standing up, Lance thought he saw Keith move to follow his hand, but he couldn’t be sure. It was the subtlest movement, just enough motion to make Lance question if he’d even seen it. But he didn’t miss the gentle smile on Keith’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's taken me way too long to post this. But I've got a reason. I've had no motivation to do anything for the past few weeks, which means I haven't been able to write, draw or edit anything. I just didn't have to motivation to. In fact, I pretty much had to force myself to write this, and even now I hate most of it. So it wasn't me being lazy or procrastinating or whatever, it was that I literally could not bring myself to do anything.


	7. A/N

Okay so I have just felt so empty and drained over the past few months, I don't know why, but I lack enough energy to do pretty much anything. I haven't written, I drew for the only first time in at least a month a couple of days ago and I'm having even more difficulty paying attention to things than normal.

I am stuck halfway between forcing myself to write a the rest of this book just to get it out (but it will be terrible), and just scrapping the whole thing, moving on to new ideas, maybe coming back to it one day. I'm leaning more towards one idea (not the one you're gonna like to be honest), but I just needed to let you guys know that I'm sorry for _dropping off the face of the earth_ , and give you a heads up in case this book does get deleted.

 

So, thanks for putting up with my shit. You guys were great.


End file.
